2023 WRITING PROMPT JOURNEY
Poetry Writing Prompts — Week Forty
Writing prompts for October 1st to 7th
Welcome to Week Forty of our 2023 Writing Prompt Journey!
We have three new prompts awaiting you, and two words/concepts for each that you can try to include in your poems (if you crave a challenge).
Also, if any of these prompts fail to inspire, but the images take you in an entirely different direction, please feel free to follow where your muse leads!
Your poems may be in any form and use any poetic devices, but here are a few different ideas of poetic forms to get you started:
- limerick: a 5-line poem with an aabba rhyme scheme that usually tells a short, comedic story. The first two lines and last line are usually 8 or 9 syllables long, and the third and fourth lines are five or six syllables long. The meter within each line should look like this (where u stands for unstressed syllables, and S stands for stressed syllables): Line 1: u S u u S u u S | Line 2: u S u u S u u S | Line 3: u S u u S | Line 4: u S u u S | Line 5: u S u u S u u S
- tanka: a 5-line poem with the syllable structure 5/7/5/7/7
- stornello: a 3-line stanza comprised of 11 syllables each. The rhyme scheme for a stornello is generally aaa. Feel free to play around and use multiple stornelli together to form a longer poem.
The simple rules for this Journey:
- Pick a prompt (or two or three!) and get writing.
- Post in our Publication, or post anywhere! Make sure to share a link in your post back to this Prompt post.
- Share a link to your prompted writing in the comments (or tag me in your post so I can find your writing to enjoy and share with others on this Journey).
- Tag your post with “Writing Prompt Journey” and “Poetry”.
Prompt 1
gourd
For an extra challenge, try to work these two words or ideas into your poem: unique | warty
Prompt 2
hayride
Challenge words/ideas: bumpy | nostalgia
Prompt 3
notebook
Challenge words/ideas: empty | potential
Remember to check out the Non-Fiction and Fiction Prompts for Week Forty for more inspiration. You can also go back to see the previous weeks’ prompts here.
And please don’t forget to post links to your prompted poetry in the comments, and link back to this post in your writing so more people can join the journey. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Chelsea Marie is a writer by night and a graphic designer by day. She is a West Coast Canadian with a bad case of wanderlust and a dream to travel the world with her severely airplane-phobic partner. Why do things the easy way when a complicated route makes a much more exciting story? Visit my other socials here: https://linktr.ee/c.the.storyteller