April Poetry Challenge

A poem a day keeps the __________

Apr 01, 2024

A friend in a mutual discord server put out this challenge, and I’m going to take part in it, for a few reasons. First, though, the prompts themselves.

April Poetry Prompts

It's the ocean sounding out
Transfigured me to joy
Write an ode to your favorite galactic dictator
Self-dissolution is barred
We are the taint in the blood
I live my life in widening circles
Estranged to myself, like shadow on water
Nothing gold can stay
Write a sonnet about a fear you've conquered
mad hatter's hat yields no new metaphor
Are you Nobody too?
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
The ambush of a new past
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world
Sooner or later delicate death
The shadows have their seasons too
Accept what comes from silence
Then stand in morning starlight and inhabit a song
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne
Write a pantoum about something or someone you're nostalgic for
With what I most enjoy contented least
And thy name, lovely One, is Ignorance
And in the breaking up of these mountains they roar like thunder
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
The vague, mute language of the countenance
Night comes to the room of the world
I like to think of your silence as the love letters you will not write me
Write a sestina about your favorite fictional character, whether your own or someone else's
You exist as the stars exist

Why would I do this? I am very much not a poet, although many years ago I wrote a lot of poetry. I don’t have any real formal training in writing poetry, no sense of meter (and only a vague awareness of meter’s existence, can’t tell you what meter a poem is in to save my life), and I have no time.

However, I do have a love for the language, and if there is one thing I know poetry does for me, it is to push my vocabulary and word usage in new and interesting directions. So I will give this a whirl, keeping most of them short (perhaps haiku, on any given day) and I expect by the end of the month to have a deeper appreciation for just how awful I am as a poet. I also expect to hone my word selections and see that affect my fiction writing. If nothing else, it will be interesting.

The monthly art challenge courtesy of Mariam Ehme in my own Discord server is to render book cover art, from famous titles, and it will be fun. Not that much of a challenge for me, necessarily. However, I expect to be using it as a teaching tool for the other authors taking part. If you would like to join us, here’s an invite which will be valid from April 1-6.