2015 April PAD Challenge: Day 27
Wow! After today’s poem, we’re looking at three days left. That’s just crazy. For today’s prompt, write a looking back poem. Of course, some people just glance over their shoulders,…
Wow! After today's poem, we're looking at three days left. That's just crazy.
For today's prompt, write a looking back poem. Of course, some people just glance over their shoulders, and others stop and turn all the way around. Some look back in time and weigh their successes and failures, evaluate things they could do better. Some claim they never look back. Whatever your stance on looking back, capture it in a poem today.
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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 Looking Back Poem:
"how to be a track star"
of course the training's important
as are the shoes each step landing
on the balls directly beneath
the chest pushed out slightly & arms
swinging back & forth but never
across hands relaxed at the wrist
& shoulders relaxed as well as
the face head aimed toward the next
target or turn on the oval
& never ever looking back
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Today's guest judge is...
Okla Elliott
Okla Elliott is currently an Illinois Distinguished Fellow at the University of Illinois where he works in the fields of comparative literature and trauma studies. His nonfiction, poetry, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, A Public Space, and Subtropics, among others.
He is the author of the fiction collection From the Crooked Timber (Press 53) and poetry collection The Cartographer’s Ink (NYQ Books). His novel, The Doors You Mark Are Your Own (co-authored with Raul Clement), is forthcoming from Dark House Press, as is his book of translation, Blackbirds in September: Selected Shorter Poems of Jurgen Becker (Black Lawrence Press).
Learn more at OklaElliott.net.
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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.
