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By Two Sylvias Press (Kelli Russell Agodon & Annette Spaulding-Convy) PURCHASE FROM: |
Welcome to Everything is Writable from Two Sylvias Press!
This collection of poetry prompts arises from two of our popular online offerings created to inspire poets: The Two Sylvias Press Advent Calendar of Poetry Prompts and The Two Sylvias Press April Prompts for National Poetry Month. We have received many requests asking us to compile our prompts into a book, and so we have answered that request by creating Everything is Writable to assist you in your writing practice. Whether you are just beginning to write poetry or you are an established poet, these writing starts will offer fresh ideas and new directions for your work.
This book can be used on an individual level, in group writing sessions, in workshops, and in classrooms. The prompts are numbered from 1-240 and cover a wide array of topics and poetic styles. You can work through the prompts in numerical order or you can skip around if you like. For a more intuitive approach, try opening the book randomly and see what prompt you land on. There are endless creative ways to use these starts.
It is our sincerest wish that Everything is Writable will inspire you to write more poems and that it will stretch you as a literary artist. You might find yourself writing poems on topics you’ve never written about before, and you might try some new poetic forms. Perhaps you may find that your poems are more daring, less self-conscious, and more experimental as you continue to develop your unique voice.
We have received some powerful feedback that our prompts have inspired not only chapbooks, but entire poetry collections. Since most full-length books contain 50-60 pages of poetry, if just 20% of these prompts lead to successful poems, you will have a manuscript ready for submission!
Remember what Sylvia Plath said: Everything in life is writable.
Be inspired and write often!
This collection of poetry prompts arises from two of our popular online offerings created to inspire poets: The Two Sylvias Press Advent Calendar of Poetry Prompts and The Two Sylvias Press April Prompts for National Poetry Month. We have received many requests asking us to compile our prompts into a book, and so we have answered that request by creating Everything is Writable to assist you in your writing practice. Whether you are just beginning to write poetry or you are an established poet, these writing starts will offer fresh ideas and new directions for your work.
This book can be used on an individual level, in group writing sessions, in workshops, and in classrooms. The prompts are numbered from 1-240 and cover a wide array of topics and poetic styles. You can work through the prompts in numerical order or you can skip around if you like. For a more intuitive approach, try opening the book randomly and see what prompt you land on. There are endless creative ways to use these starts.
It is our sincerest wish that Everything is Writable will inspire you to write more poems and that it will stretch you as a literary artist. You might find yourself writing poems on topics you’ve never written about before, and you might try some new poetic forms. Perhaps you may find that your poems are more daring, less self-conscious, and more experimental as you continue to develop your unique voice.
We have received some powerful feedback that our prompts have inspired not only chapbooks, but entire poetry collections. Since most full-length books contain 50-60 pages of poetry, if just 20% of these prompts lead to successful poems, you will have a manuscript ready for submission!
Remember what Sylvia Plath said: Everything in life is writable.
Be inspired and write often!
Sample Prompts:
BIRD IS THE WORD
Write a poem from the perspective of a specific kind of bird, like a blue heron, hawk, sparrow, hummingbird, seagull, etc. Write in the first person as though the bird is speaking, but don’t tell your readers directly that the poem is actually in the voice of a bird. You might begin, “When I look down on the beach…” or “When I sit in the moonlight…” Include details of what the landscape looks like from the sky, from a nest, from a treetop, etc. Consider listening to a bird-themed song before you begin: Free Bird, Fly Like An Eagle, When Doves Cry, Blackbird, Hummingbird, Rockin’ Robin, etc.
EXPLORE YOUR BAD NATURE
Choose one of the following inspirational quotes about nature, and in your poem, disagree with the sentiments of the quote: “I never saw a discontented tree” (John Muir); “The best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain” (H.W. Longfellow); “Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light” (Theodore Roethke). Your poem might be about the discontented tree in your neighbor’s yard that has been over-pruned, or perhaps your poem might rage against the rain.
AMERICAN SENTENCES
The poet Allen Ginsberg created a variation of the Haiku—rather than dividing the 17 syllable form into 3 lines, he wrote a single sentence consisting of 17 syllables, aptly named “American Sentence.” Here is one of Ginsberg’s “sentences”: “Crescent moon, girls chatter at twilight on the bus ride to Ankara.” Try writing 4 or 5 “American Sentences” using only 17 syllables per line and keeping the flavor of the Haiku—a simple moment observing something in nature.
