Dragon Writing Prompts

I love collections :-) One of Kenneth Koch’s ideas in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams was to sprinkle a poem with Spanish colors (which grew into other words too).

I thought it might be fun to collect color names from many different languages. Try picking one language and not looking at the English color names. (Though some are from familiar roots and you’ll be able to guess :-) Use the colors by sound. Or use the words to mean something else. What does each sound like?

In prose or poetry, create a colorful event: a festival, a holiday, a circus, nightclub, a culture drawn to bright colors. Set it in the future or past or a fantasy world. An interstellar ship trying to keep people’s spirits up during the years long trip with spirited music and colorful decorations. A culture where dyes are rare so they bring out their colorful clothes only once a year in celebration of spring.

Here’s what a couple of the kids did with the idea in Wishes, Lies and Dreams:

On my planeta named Carambona La Paloma
We have a fiesta called Luna Estrella.
A funny looking hombre comes to our homes.
He has four heads: a leon head, an oso head, a mono head, and a culebra head.
We do a baile named Mar of Nieve.
On this fiesta we eat platos.
That’s how we celebrate Christmas on my planet.

Marion Mackles

The luna is big and clara.
The perro I saw is almost as big as a caballo.
The caballo I saw ate the manzana I had.
The estrella was as clara as the sun.

Valerie Chasse

A metaphor turns one thing into another. Start with the statement:

A road is a road for cars.

and see how many roads (and paths and byways) you can come up with that carry something from one place to another.

• An artery is a road for exhausted blood leading back to the heart.
• The internet is a superhighway for spam.
• School is a potholed dull path to college that they’ve been promising to pave for decades.
• A river is snowmelt’s road from mountain to ocean.
• Pretend is a road to anywhere.
• A lecture is a pathway to sleep.

For this poetry warm up, put a color in each line. Try starting with just one color.

This will free you to see the color in not only objects but sounds and smells and numbers and feelings.

As the warm up to the warm up, Koch dropped some keys on the desk and slapped the desk with a ruler and asked the kids what color those were. He asked them what was the color of France, England and Spain; of Monday and Wednesday and the number fourteen hundred.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

This is an idea from Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

A bit pressed for time, here’s my explanation from 2007 when I introduced them:

“In his book he has a whole series of what he calls poetry warm ups. It’s a way of getting some thoughts down on paper that might with some rearranging, cutting and editing, become a poem or the seed of a poem.

Some are templates, so each line begins the same. Some are the seed to write a series of related ideas. Most have some repetition in them to help get things flowing. Don’t be discouraged if your first dozen lines or more are trite. That’s just the clogs coming out of your creative pathways :-) But that stuff needs to get out onto paper so the path can be freed for better ideas to flow more freely.”

In addition to the regular writing prompts, I’ll post one of these warm ups too.

Today’s warm up is comparisons.

Include “like” or “as” in each line. The lines can be all about the same thing, or about one subject, or all different.

Some examples of templates:

______ is like ______.

______ is as ______ as ______.

Here are some examples from kids in Kenneth Koch’s class:

A butterfly is like a flying rainbow.
Clouds are like flying ice cream.
Hair is like spaghetti.
The sun is as red as a fire.
The moon is like an egg.
Slow is like vanilla ice cream.
A moon is like a banana.
Thunder is like bowling.
Black ink is dark as m idnight.
Snow is as white as the sun shines.
A rose is as red as a beating of drums.

For today’s poetry prompt imagine you’re a creature or thing. What’s it like to be a television or your cat or a cloud or a record album or a fish in a tank …

The children took the idea in many different directions: interviews, imagining what the answers would be, taking on the persona and revealing the answers … Don’t limit yourself to what you think the approach “must” be :-)

Examples:

I would like to be a pen because every day I would dance and whenever I’m out of ink they would put me away until I got ink. And I would go any place people go.

---

Questions to Ask Snow Person

Do you like to be what you are?
Do you like when people step on you and make snow balls with you?
Do you like your color white?
Do you like to be mixed with now?
Do you like to stand all day out in the snow with nothing to do?
Do you like when people fall on you?
Snow
The answer is
NO!!!

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How does it feel to be a blackboard?
I think it would feel funny,
Always being written on.
Always having examples erased off.
What do you see?
You see many many kids.

To warm up your poetry muscles today, have fun with false comparisons.

Use the form

As ____ as a ____.

and make comparisons that aren’t true.

As always, you can use that format for every line. You can use it at the beginning and then explore the comparison in subsequent lines. Or make a few of the same comparisons and move onto others.

For some reason, it’s a lot more fun and freeing than trying to come up with comparisons that are true. Maybe it ties into the psychology of wanting to do whatever we’re told not to do ;-)

Here’s some examples off the top of my head since this didn’t come from Koch’s book:

As quiet as a wolf in a hen house.
As quiet as a broken muffler.

As alone as Santa at Christmas.
As alone as a Brittany Spears.

As busy as a beach in winter.
As busy as a full bellied kitten.

For this warm up, in each line write an fanciful combination. Keep going for 10-15 minutes.

The following examples were all done by children who didn’t feel constrained only to combinations that make sense. :-)

swan of bees
sailboat of water
pajamas of oranges
book of stripes
kiss of babies
skeleton of discovery
blackboard of moons
swimming pool of doorknobs
hat of laughs

“I once saw …”

or

“I wish I had …”

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

Compare opposites for today’s poetry warm up.

Begin with a comparison that is opposite: a big thing and a little thing “An elephant is like a mouse” or two things that seem not alike “Rain is like a cemetery” and then explore how they’re alike. You can use one comparison or many comparisons in the poem.

Here’s something quick as an example:

An elephant is like a mouse.
Both are gray with long dangling attachments and papery ears and dark button eyes
Rain is like a cemetery.
They’re gray and dreary and make the grass grow.
A peach is like a snake.
They bulge when they are full of food.
A ghost is like a pencil.
You find them in the most unexpected places.

Warm ups: These are chances to be wild and creative and get the words and ideas flowing. Generate lines based on a template. The point isn’t to create a whole poem but to generate lines for the poem. The ones at the beginning will probably be trite, cliche and stiff. Let them out onto the paper. Allow them to clear a path that will allow the creative ideas to flow out. :-)

The “I” writing the poem doesn’t need to be you! It can be anyone or any*thing* you want.

If you get stuck before your 15 minutes is up, read back over what you’ve written to see if it inspires some more ideas.

When you’re done, you can toss out the ones you don’t like and collect the lines you like into a poem :-)

For today’s poetry warm up begin with:

If I were ______ I would ______.

Then either continue that pattern with different speculations or start each line with “I would” to expand on the original speculation.

Here’s an example from the book that was prompted by the more specific “If I were snow …” (so you don’t need to begin with the same object for yours, but can if you want!)

If I were snow I would fill up the streets.
If I were snow I would also freeze my brother.
If I were snow I would be mean and nice.
If I were snow and I saw somebody eating something very hot I would cool it for him.

For today’s poetry warm up, make a statement about something ordinary. Then think of strange, impossible or maybe beautiful things that you might wish were there but aren’t. For example:

The stars twinkle in the night sky.
None are falling to earth.
None spell my name in the sky.

Warm ups: These are chances to be wild and creative and get the words and ideas flowing. Generate lines based on a template. The point isn’t to create a whole poem but to generate lines for the poem. The ones at the beginning will probably be trite, cliche and stiff. Let them out onto the paper. Let them to clear a path that will allow the creative ideas to flow out. :-)

Write a noisy warm up poem. :-)

As a template for each line you can use one of the following (or come up with your own):

______ sounds like ______.

or

The noise of/made by ______ is like ______.

or

The sound of ______ is like _____.

You can use the same template line for each line. You can mix them up. Use the template as an aid rather than a straight jacket!

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

April is National Play with Words Month!

Actually it’s National Poetry Month but to keep the prompts relatively short and encourage people who cringe at the word poetry, it’s a whole lot more about playing with words.

Last year I introduced Kenneth Koch’s poetry warm up exercises. (You can see them all here by clicking on Poetry Warm Ups over on the right.) They’re a way of playing with words to get stuff flowing :-)

No actual poetry will be produced, though you may come up with an intriguing line that leads to a poem or a story.

For today, use the structure of the first tabloid headline and generate similar lines of the form:

Food — Noun — -ed verb

Cucumber Killer Captured
Bean Bomber Bamboozled
Anchovy Anarchist Annihilated

Top 10 Tabloid Headlines from APRIL 1998

1. CUCUMBER KILLER CAPTURED! — WWN
2. BEN FRANKLIN SHOCKER!He was a Founding Father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence — AND A SERIAL KILLER! — WWN
3. Teens ordered to clean toilets after peeing on theater seats! — WWN
4. 10 GIRAFFES HAVE HEADS TORN OFF — when zoo truck passes under low bridge — WWN
5. Kitten drowned by a giant goldfish! Cat dips paw in tank & fish pulls him in! — WWN
6. Exploding grapefruits kill hundreds in Argentina! — WWN
7. DEAD HUBBY BURIED WITH WINNING LOTTO TICKET IN HIS POCKET Anxious wife digs up 103 corpses looking for him! — WWN
8. FARMER DEVELOPS THE ELVIS CHICKEN! New birds sport slick hairdos & swivel their hips when they walk! — WWN
9. Gun-totin’ Texan shoots baby kitten. . . THEN CLAIMS SELF-DEFENSE! — WWN
10. VENGEFUL OLDSTER SUES DAUGHTER FOR DEAD WIFE’S ASHES . . . SO HE CAN FLUSH THEM DOWN THE TOILET! — WWN

For the poetry warm up today, use the template: “The third eye can see …”

The third eye can see what regular eyes can’t or is only open when the regular eyes are closed.

Here are some examples of children’s poems from the book:

The third eye can see inside me
The third eye can see my voice
The third eye can see my bones
The third eye can see the wind

For today’s poetry warm up play with onomatopoetic sounds. Begin with a sound and then follow with words that sound like it (but don’t necessarily rhyme). You can explore one word for several lines or a different word on each line.

Here’s some examples from Kenneth Koch’s class:

The buzz of the bees was as fuzzy as my cousin’s dozen muzzled puzzles.

clink — pink, drink
tap — hat, snap, black, cat

For today’s poetry warm up you have permission to lie :-) You can make each line a different lie, or every line about the same lie.

Here’s an example from Kenneth Koch’s class:

I am grass as green as can be.
I am in a tree on a leaf.
I am in New York on a flying blueberry.
Mud is pretty.
Rain is ugly.

Marion Mackles

For today’s poetry warm up compare opposites.

Begin with a comparison that is opposite, for example, a big thing and a little thing: “An elephant is like a mouse” or two things that seem not alike: “Rain is like a cemetery” and then explore how they’re alike. You can begin with one comparison and explore that in the rest of the poem, or use many comparisons in the poem following each with a one line exploration.

Here’s an example of the second:

An elephant is like a mouse,
for they are grey with active noses.

Rain is like a cemetery,
for they are a times restful and at times saddening.

Use the following template for today’s warm up.

_____ is as ______ (color) as ______ (sound).

Here’s some examples from the kids in Kenneth Koch’s class:

A rose is as red as a beating of drums.
Clouds are as white as bursting firecrackers.
A tree is as green as a roaring lion.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

I should have sent this as the first warm up, but since we’ve had several new people join in the last week, it *is* the first warm up for them :-)

A poetry warm up is a template that lets you play with words without worrying about structure. It’s sort of a coloring book for poetry :-)

This is a great initial warm up since it gives so much but allows for a great deal of goofy creativity.

Each line starts with “I wish” then must include a color, a fictional character and a place.

Here are some children’s examples:

I wish I was green with Superman in the Negev Desert.
I wish I was Charlie Brown in blue Saudi Arabia.
I wish that I was Popeye with a yellow dress on me and in South Carolina.
I wish Bugs Bunny didn’t climb the blue tree in Turkey Land.

(By the way, if you want to create your own template, you’re not limited to colors and fictional characters. You can start with anything. Kenneth Koch suggested animals, months, cars, planets, drinks, birds, states … The possibilities are as vast as your imagination :-)

Poetry warm up. Alternate these lines:

I used to …
But now …

Here’s some examples of children’s poems from the book. Children are free of preconceived notions about what they’re “supposed to” write :-)

I used to be a fish
But now I’m a nurse

I used to be a rose
But now I’m a leaf

I used to be a design
But now I’m a tree

I used to have a baby
But now he’s a dog

It is, as I mentioned on Sunday, National Poetry month :-) so lots of prompts coming up on playing with words and ideas.

At some point most people pick up the idea that authors begin writing a novel with the first sentence and finish with the last sentence. And I suspect people have the same idea about poetry: that it’s written first line to last line in order.

Of course neither is true. Authors (of novels or poems or lyrics or plays or …) generate much that never gets into the final product, they write the end in the middle and move the middle to the beginning. They write really crappy stuff for the initial draft and play around with it and clean it up in subsequent drafts.

This is an idea from Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch. (Which has lots of good ideas and imaginative poetry by young children. If you’re interested in the book, there are also some older hardback and paperback editions for under a $1. (Though do note that some listed under hardback say paperback. :-/))

In his book he has a whole series of what he calls poetry warm ups. It’s a way of getting some thoughts down on paper that might with some rearranging, cutting and editing, become a poem or the seed of a poem.

Some are templates, so each line begins the same. Some are the seed to write a series of related ideas. Most have some repetition in them to help get things flowing. Don’t be discouraged if your first dozen lines or more are trite. That’s just the clogs coming out of your creative pathways :-) But that stuff needs to get out onto paper so the path can be freed for better ideas to flow more freely.

In addition to the regular writing prompts, I’ll post one of these warm ups too.

I wish

Be bold and whimsical! Be selfish! Don’t let yourself get bogged down by a need to create wishes in the vein of “world peace” ;-)

Examples of children’s poems from the book:

I wish I was a beautiful chick who could be in any period of life
Being Cleopatry in Egypt with handsome men at my feet
Or being a pirate enjoying the gold
Also a bloodthirsty vampire scaring the men.

I wish I was a traffic cop
I wish a turtle gave me a ride
I wish I was a lion with my brother.
I wish all my sisters would disappear.