2015 April PAD Challenge: Day 26
Every day brings joy and pain, at least that’s what my Facebook feed would have me believe. Every day, I see stories of people helping each other and harming each…
Every day brings joy and pain, at least that's what my Facebook feed would have me believe. Every day, I see stories of people helping each other and harming each other. Every day, I see surprises that improve lives and surprises that completely shatter lives. Every day, babies are born, people die, and some fall in love. I hope your days in April have been improved by this challenge--or at least, that they've been more bearable.
For today's prompt, take a word or two invented by William Shakespeare, make it the title of your poem, and write your poem. Click here for a link to some words coined by Shakespeare, who was baptized on this date in 1564. If the link doesn't work, here are a few: advertising, bloodstained, critic, dwindle, eyeball, hobnob, luggage, radiance, and zany. He invented more than 1,700!
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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 a Word-Invented by Shakespeare Poem:
"cold-blooded moonbeam"
slanting across the sea
& the lovers hidden in the trees
whispering into the breeze
cold-blooded moonbeam
may you tempt the hearts
& stretch the seams
of every lover everywhere
who ever threw away their cares
to reach for something that might be there
& if the lover plays the fool
so much more the worth for you
because it means the pain is true
cold-blooded moonbeam
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Today's guest judge is...
Hélène Cardona
Hélène Cardona is a poet, literary translator, and actor, author of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry), Pinnacle Book Award & Reader’s Favorite Award winner; The Astonished Universe (Red Hen Press); Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry), Ce que nous portons (Editions du Cygne), her translation of Dorianne Laux; and Beyond Elsewhere (White Pine Press), her translation of Gabriel Arnou-Laujeac.
She holds a Master’s in American Literature from the Sorbonne, taught at Hamilton College & LMU, received fellowships from the Goethe-Institut & Universidad Internacional de Andalucia, and co-edits Dublin Poetry Review, Levure Litteraire, and Fulcrum.
Learn more at HeleneCardona.com.
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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.
