2015 April PAD Challenge: Day 25
What an exciting month! One thing I tried to do this year was involve a few international judges, since we have participants from around the world. Today’s guest judge is…
What an exciting month! One thing I tried to do this year was involve a few international judges, since we have participants from around the world. Today's guest judge is definitely one of those: He's from Canada, based in London, and today is in Paris. But really, every judge--whether here or there--is worth checking out this month; your own poetry can only gain.
For today's prompt, write an across the sea poem. This could be a love letter, an electronic submission through cyber space and time, or a travel poem (by air or sea, though probably not car). Modern travel or back in the days of rugged explorers. Wandering or wondering, your choice. As always, the prompt is just the springboard to your poem; feel free to bend and break.
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Get the National Poetry Month Collection!
Celebrate National Poetry Month with a super poetic collection of poetry-related products with the National Poetry Month Collection!
This super-sized kit includes 4 e-books, 3 paperback books, 7 tutorials, and much more! In fact, this kit covers everything from prompts to poetic forms and from revising poems to getting them published.
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Here's my attempt at an Across the Sea Poem:
"bottled up"
i don't know if these words will float
in this small glassy cork-sealed boat
to the intended one i love
but to reach someone is enough
by now i may have reached my end
& you may not see me again
but it's enough to write this note
because it means i still have hope
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Today's guest judge is...
Todd Swift
Todd Swift, PhD, is a British-Canadian poet, lecturer, critic, and anthologist. In the 1990s, he wrote hundreds of hours of television for HBO, Paramount, Hanna-Barbera, CBC, and Fox, and was story editor for many episodes of Sailor Moon.
Swift is the author of nine full-length poetry collections, including The Ministry of Emergency Situations: Selected Poems from Marick Press, USA, 2015, and When All My Disappointments Came Home at Once. He is Director of the indie press Eyewear Publishing, Ltd., based in London.
Swift's long essay on British poetry appeared in Poetry (Chicago) in late 2014. He was Oxfam GB's poet-in-residence 2004-2012.
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Poem Your Heart Out again!
The prompts from last year’s challenge along with the winning poem from each day ended up in an inspired little anthology titled Poem Your Heart Out. It was part prompt book, part poetry anthology, and part workbook, because each day includes a few pages for you to make your own contributions.
Anyway, the anthology worked out so well that we’re doing it again this year, and you can take advantage of a 20% discount from Words Dance by pre-ordering before May 1, 2015.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems.
Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
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More poetic posts here:
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
