Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 609
Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write a world-building poem.
Yesterday, we dropped our latest Writer's Digest Presents podcast episode. This one was based on world-building in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. It includes a great interview with poet Jeannine Hall Gailey, who reads a couple poems, talks about promotion for poets, crafting project-based poetry collections, and more.
For today's prompt, write a world-building poem. This could be a poem based on an already existing real or fictional world, but it could also be one of your creation. In the world-building podcast, Gailey mentions using persona poems to help with her world-building in poetry.
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
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Write a poem every single day of the year with Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming. After sharing more than a thousand prompts and prompting thousands of poems for more than a decade, Brewer picked 365 of his favorite poetry prompts here.
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Here’s my attempt at a World-Building Poem:
“no dine, no dash,” by Robert Lee Brewer
he sits at a table
& glances over
his shoulder
the waitress took
his order & then
disappeared in
the kitchen
that was ten
minutes ago
he sits at a table
& sees nothing
hiding outside
the diner
the interior lights
reflect the night's
darkness back
at him
he considers
whether it's safer
to leave now
or wait for
whatever
comes next
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.
