Dragon Writing Prompts

Since poetry came up on the list, here’s a poetry prompt. (I should be sending out poetry prompts more than just during Poetry Month!)

This is something simple and yet digs into the strength of poetry: holding things up to unique ways of seeing (and tasting and feeling). Use the template to describe an abstract in terms of the senses.

The Feeling Poem

Line one: Name an abstract
Line two: “Smells like. . .”
Line three: “Tastes like. . .”
Line four: “Sounds like. . .”
Line five: “Feels like. . . .”
Line six: “Feels like. . .”
Line seven: “Feels like. . .”
Line eight: Name the abstract

(The original suggestion at The Magic Writing Tram was to write about an emotion but it will work just as well with any abstract idea.)

If you need some inspiration, there are examples done by kids at the link below.

Feel free to come up with your own abstract but if you wish to spend time on the poem rather than the idea, here’s a handful of topics that go along with this time of the year.

anticipation
charity
patience
peace
wonder

If you need more there are lists of virtues and emotions from previous writing prompts.

From The Magic Writing Tram.

One more poetry reference for April.

Trypto is a game by David Parlett.

Take a short poem or stanza (or piece of a song) that is unfamiliar. (He suggests about 30 words.) Make a list of all the words. (If you’re clever with word processors you can do a global replace of all the spaces with carriage returns to make a list.) He suggests alphabetizing. It might be more fun to cut the words up so you can shuffle them around easily. Then each person tries to recreate the poem. (Or make up an even better one!)

Here’s one that he used as an example:

all
and
bars
girls
going
hat
home
hung
I
I
I
in
loved
my
stars
the
the
the
upon
was
when
young

The original is below:

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I loved when I was young
The girls in all the bars,
And going home I hung
My hat upon the stars.

— Victor J Daly

Use the following poem as a template to create a one sentence poem. It doesn’t need to be about a cat, just an action.

Write one sentence describing one action made up of several smaller actions with the same (or very close) syllable pattern as William Carlos Williams’s poem.

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down

into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot.

From an exercise by Alicia Ostriker in The Practice of Poetry: writing exercises from poets who teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell.

Prose writers can be as conscious of what sounds go together and the pictures they paint as poets are.

Use the words below as Lewis Carroll did in Jabberwocky, interspersing them with real words. You don’t need to write a poem (but you can if you want!) You can use them in a story. Don’t try to use all the words! Pick and choose the ones that sound good to you. Add endings as needed (eg., -ly to make adverbs, -ed or -ing or whatever necessary to make the right tense verb.)

Rather than pay attention to the beginning sounds as in alliteration or the ending sounds as in rhyme, listen to the sounds inside the words. For instance bimarian misqueme sounds better than pication misqueme because the “m”s in the first echo each other but pication would go with something with a “k” or “g” sound (they’re both said at the back of the throat) or strong “a” sound (well, assuming you’re pronouncing it as piCAYshun! If you’ve come up with a different pronunciation it might go with something else better.)

They are all real words and came from Compendium of lost words

amorevolous
aporrhoea
bimarian
caprizant
cibosity
drollic
egrote
foppotee
hemerine
historiaster
jecorary
jumperism
kexy
miliaceous
misqueme
myriander
orgiophant
pication
pigritude
plenisphere
ponask
prandicle
pudify
quadrimular
rendling
roblet
sacricolist
scaevity
scathefire
schismarch
slimikin
soleated
sospital
starrify
tauroboly
temerate
thural
tremefy
urette
vacivity
vanmost
venialia
welmish
woundikins
xenization
yelve

---

More
There’s a physical reason why some sounds go together. With practice you’ll just unconsciously feel that sounds using the same part of the mouth seem to go together. But I like lists so I’ll include the list from the exercise. If you pay attention to where your tongue is, or what part of your mouth you’re using or whether your nose is involved when you say the following letters, you’ll see why they’re listed together.

Dentals (means teeth): t, d, th
Labials (means lips): b, p
Gutturals (back of the throat): g, k, ng
Labiodentals: f, v
Sibilants (they hiss!): s, z, sh, ch, zh, j
Nasals (nose): m, n, ng, nk
Liquids: l, r

Here’s the poem example Karen Swenson wrote in the book:

Noun: oca
Verb: dextran, rhonchus, umbles
Adjective: maravedi, saccade
Adverb: pavid, tectum

The oca moaned all night in the dump
among cars rhonchused, cankered with
the maravedi dust. Dextraning
pavvidly in moonlight it
woke neighbors who umbled tectumly
down to the pit with guns and baseball bats,
a saccade crowd bent on murder.

She says: “To break this down a bit: oca and moaned are paired for their “o” sound; night picks up the nasals in moaned and dump. In the next line the nasals of among match with the “on” of rhonchused and the “n” in cankered. “C” marches through the line from cars to rhonchused to cankered.”

From A Lewis Carroll Carol, an exercise by Karen Swenson in The Practice of Poetry: writing execises from poets who teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell.

A metaphor paints one concept with the attributes of another.

Cut out the following words and shuffle them around until you find some “_____” of “_____” forms that strike you. Typically the first will be a tangible (concrete, something you can touch) noun and the second will be intanglible (abstract, an idea or emotion, something you can’t touch). But play around with it.

The Tangibles:

goblet
cart
sheen
museum
blizzard
garden
coffin
explosion
curse
dagger
heart
illusion
drama
ghost
forest

The Intangibles:

adventure
character
conflict
death
hell
fame
friendship
gossip
insult
hope
joy
luck
pity
popularity
wit

Write sentences — or a poem — for your favorites, tying the verb in with the metaphor, eg, a cauldron of something might be stirred or boiled, a basket of something might be woven or carried.

This is adapted from an exercise from You Can Write Poetry by Jeff Mock.