Paper Poetry New Year(2024) Prompt With a Twist
INIZIO
The thin wisdom dividing what to hold on and what to let go, we welcome the New Beginnings!
Hello Paper Poetry readers,
Wish you all a very Happy New Year!
May this year you see more ups and less downs
May this year makes you smile more and less frown
May this year gives you hope, and the courage to cling onto that hope
May this year you drench in love, and feel the divine energy from above.
May this year, Life is proud of you!
This is Paper Poetry’s new year wish and prayer for all humankind.
A brief about Paper Poetry
Suntonu Bhadra, owner of Paper Poetry, had a vision when he created this beautiful publication, Paper Poetry. In his words, “We are living in the digital world, covered in the autonomous aspects & tracked motions of life. Yet, somehow we are losing some critical elements. Keyboards, touchpads, & speech-to-text are there, but we believe that handwritten words on paper is still meaningful to some poets”
He wanted to connect with the roots in this digital age.
His deep ethereal connection and reverence to the words on paper, laid the inception of Paper Poetry in August 2020.
For him handwritten words on paper still matter and he had a belief to find kindred spirits via this medium of Paper Poetry.
And he did find wonderful kindred spirits holding the baton up high and strong, Love you all!
We have come a long way. Suntonu Bhadra (Owner), Carolyn Hastings and myself (Co- editors), only with your love and support and the belief you have put in us.
We fully intend, with all our heart and passion to keep the flame of Paper Poetry sparkle and shine and reach new heights in 2024, because words on paper still matter..
Wrapping up December 2023 prompt
We ran Poember for the first time in November 2022 as a month-long poetry event all about rhyme. We called it Poember November!
It was hugely successful. So much so, that we had many contributing poets suggest we make it an annual event. Heeding to the requests, we ran it again in December 2023.
We were thrilled with Poember November- part II responses. Each one unique in its own perspective. Please take a moment to relish these delicacies before we move on to our next exciting prompt.
⚡️What Lights Your Happy Fire? ~ John Hansen ⚡️First Weekend in December ~ Sherry Atkinson ⚡️Joy To All ~ Carolyn Hastings ⚡️Celebrate ~ Sinus Kosinus ⚡️Fallen Moments ~ Jim Dutton ⚡️We Wait in Joyful Hope ~ Sherry Atkinson ⚡️Reality Is Never Crystal Clear ~ Carolyn Hastings ⚡️Tabby’s Christmas Gift ~ Sherry Atkinson ⚡️It’s Getting Later ~ William J Spirdione ⚡️Piano Playing ~ Brittany Benko ⚡️Seven Limericks ~ The Story of How Santa Reined in His Elves to Save Christmas ~ Shereen Bingham ⚡️Oh Little Town of Bethlehem ~ Gail Valker McNulty 🕊️🌱 ⚡️Christmas Limericks ~ John Hansen ⚡️Shehr-e-Bechārgi ~ Hira Ali ⚡️Charging Into the End of the Year ~ Gloria D. Gonsalves ⚡️A Portal to Tranquility ~ Carolyn Hastings ⚡️The Pen and The Page ~. Jennifer Morrison ⚡️Christmas Why? ~ Toni Crowe ⚡️Tingle-O-Jingle ~ Carolyn Hastings ⚡️Elf in Self ~ Jenine "Jeni" Baines ⚡️To the Ones with No Place at the Table ~ Josie P. Julius ⚡️New Year’s Resolutions Aren’t Needed ~ Megan Nicole Morgan ⚡️Theia Lies Beneath This Moonlit Night ~ William J Spirdione ⚡️Again ~ Sally A Mortemore ⚡️With Or Without You ~ Cristina Cattai ⚡️May Your House Be Too Small ~John Hansen ⚡️Emotions Wreath ~ Toni Crowe
Thank you everyone for making Poember memorable, yet again!
New Prompt Structure
We love our Paper Poetry family. We are growing. We are diverse. We are a big, close-knit bunch of 875 members, who every moment deep dive into their soul and dig such wonderful treasures and adorn with poetry.
Our poets are from varied longitudes on the globe and come from different ethnic backgrounds, and from now on, to respect the diversity we plan to be more inclusive.
To hear, and respect differing perspectives on a prompt. Different cultures may have different take, a different line of thinking and we are longing to provide a platform to this unity in diversity. We are longing to hear and learn and understand from the wider diaspora.
As we embark on a new year, and new beginnings, to accommodate a wider spectrum of emotions on a single prompt, we are offering a slight twist in the way we offer our prompt.
The twist is that it will be a more inclusive prompt.
We will propose a prompt and open it up for-:
a) Track A- for the motion- if your ideas relate to the prompt and you feel a cohesive connection to the prompt, go for this track.
b) Track B- against the motion — Feeling different is ok and you do not have to conform. If you feel you have an opposing/contrasting perspective to the prompt, go for this track.
The tag and kicker will be set accordingly.
Let’s make it clearer with an example for the January 2024 prompt.
January 2024 prompt
The prompt is INIZIO
Origin ~ Italian
Meaning ~ Beginnings
A beginning could be happy for some and not so happy for some. For some of us, it could be the ending of something we hold dear to our hearts.
There could be contrasting perspectives We are offering that when you write on INIZIO, you chose a track based on your perspective of the prompt.
a) Track A- Looking forward to new beginnings, excited about what is to unfold, a promising future, and letting go of the old. Feeling good about burying the past, giving a closure and moving on in the hope of new pastures, new beginnings.
OR
b) Track B — being pensive about the past, feeling sad about the time/memories, people slipping by from us, the beginnings which compel us to move on when we just want to dwell and reminisce, of the times bygone. In short, the clock is ticking but our hearts are in the past.
Form: any form of poetry as long as it has an element of INIZIO (Beginning) somewhere in the body of the poem.
Theme: your choice
Word limit: minimum 10 words
Line limit: minimum 3 lines
Kicker: please use ‘January 2024 Paper Poetry’ as the kicker; your choice of title and subtitle
Tags: please use ‘INIZIO Track A’ or ‘INIZIO Track B’ tag when submitting your poem.
Images: maximum two images
👉 At least one of your images must incorporate a handwritten/handcrafted element in either paper or digital format in accordance with Paper Poetry’s submission guidelines. Suggestions: a handwritten segment of your story, a decorative title,
👉an illustration is welcome, however we ask for handwritten note/s
👉AI-generated images are acceptable providing you include your source link as evidence in the caption or explain how the image was derived. Please refer to Paper Poetry’s homepage for more examples.
Extensions: please include a promotional link to this prompt and invite (@ handle tag) up to five other writers to join the prompt.
Submission period: Monday, January 1 (UTC-10hrs, Cook Islands 12:00am) — Wednesday, January 31 (UTC-10hrs, Cook Islands 11:59 pm)
We welcome new writers to join the prompt. Please leave a comment requesting to be added as a writer and include your Medium @ handle; or email us at [email protected]
Happy New Year,
© All rights Reserved 2024 Indubala Kachhawa