From the preserved lemons and sesame crackers to the Walla Walla sweet onions, this poem about neighborliness inspires us to hospitality through food.
Day 11: Food as Love
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem Awaiting Arrival Food is the center of hospitality in today’s poem, even though there is no particular guest expected on the horizon. Each improbable visit is anticipated even “after all these years of nothing coming down the road.” Like many of us, the people in the poem […]
Drought on the Open Road
Drought on the Open Road Once the herd was so thirsty they ate the burn right off the interstate shoulder, two bites from asphalt and cars flying 75 miles to nowhere. Heat paralyzed cows never look up. —Marcus Goodyear, from Barbies at Communion T. S. Poetry Press, 2010
Day 10: Look Up
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem Drought on the Open Road Write a poem about ordinary needs that sometimes lead us to do or consume what is not natural or good for either us or our natural surroundings. Why don’t people “look up”? In other words, why do they almost blindly do things […]
Day 9: Beauty’s Price
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem The Poetry of Money 2 Using natural images, write a poem about beauty’s price. How does beauty encourage us to take care of it, thus asking us to pay a cost for keeping it intact? Is it worth the price? Or, how does beauty take care of […]
The Poetry of Money 2
The Poetry of Money 2 for Rachel Marks The tail of the peacock male shimmers with metallic coins, the eyes of money winking beauty’s price. What is a poem worth? Just this feathery spread melting change into cool rain. —Marcus Goodyear, from Barbies at Communion T. S. Poetry Press, 2010 Want the whole 30 […]
Day 8: I Pretend
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem Today by the Creek I Pretend I’m the Dalai Lama Think of the kindest public or religious figure you know, either in present times or history. Consider their aspect: how they dress (dressed), their looks, their way of walking or other gestures. Pretend you are this person, […]
Today by the Creek I Pretend I’m the Dalai Lama
Today by the Creek I Pretend I’m the Dalai Lama Today by the creek I pretend I’m the Dalai Lama. I don’t know enough to get it wrong. The robes saffron, golden. The smile, serene. The walk feline, Persian, with a hint of bobcat. My breath comes from the belly, sanctifies plants that sway on […]
Day 7: Distances & Magnitude
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem North on the Illahee Ferry Images of both distance and closeness, smallness and vastness, exist in today’s poem. Every life is sustained by both. Write a poem about an experience that is very close or small, the way the ferry, the pocket, and the orange are to […]
North on the Illahee Ferry
North on the Illahee Ferry So there you are, where you wanted to be. I can imagine the Seattle city pier falling away behind you. Herring gulls wheel along their wires, reflections shattering in the ferry wake. You lean out over the swell, caught by blue distance, and when the cold finds its way onto […]
Day 6: No Rain & Road
Today’s writing prompt is based on the poem Aubade Write a love or friendship poem that captures a sense of loss. Include both: • some kind of natural element • some kind of human-made element For example, today’s poem uses the images of no-rain and a closed road. Want the whole 30 poems, 30 […]
Aubade
“I still want you / though it hasn’t rained in forever,” says this aubade poem, which also features a glimpse of the sea.
