Author Archives: grahamswords1962

Today, we we’re challenged to write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music. For examples, we were offered A. Van Jordan’s “Que Sera Sera” and Adrian Matejka’s “Soave Sia Il Vento.” In recognition of the football team I used to follow achievingContinue reading “Yellows”

Today, we are asked to write a poem in which we closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. The “surprise” ending to this James Wright poem is a good illustration ofContinue reading “Soup student”

Today we are given stamps as food for thought. I could have waxed lyrical about my days in The Stamp King shop, sharing beetroot sarnies with Derek while rummaging through boxes of stamps looking for flowering birds of paradise, but I have a full day ahead and little time to ponder, so I selected aContinue reading “Stamp of affection”

Today’s prompt asks us to write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word. This technique is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery. You might say I slept with this one. ……. Cheese isContinue reading “From Fromage with love”

The left hand column are words I chose that have come into mind on my first day away in North Wales, the right hand column are the randomly selected rhyming words for them as directed by today’s prompt. Bitter – tittergroan – thronesheen – streamache – placatesmoke – invokeJackdaw – corridorlichen – smittenstrait – gateSwimmingContinue reading “Yr Wyddfa”

I was not inspired by today’s prompt, I think our world is too full of tall tales being told by inauthentic so called leaders without me adding to them. I took a reflective moment instead. The tick, tick, tick of the clock, Hops, Around the breathless spaces of space Between Venus and Mars, And allContinue reading “Tick Tick”

Today’s challenge? To write either a monostich, which is a one-line poem, or a poem made up of one-liner style jokes/sentiments. Our inspiration? To take a look at Joe Brainard’s poem “30 One-Liners” or Frank O’Hara’s “Lines for the Fortune Cookies.” I looked and was stimulated by the following line. “Many successful monostich poems willContinue reading “Imagination”

Ezra Pound famously said that “poetry is news that stays news.” Today, we were invited to write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic titbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing. I chose the picture above and borrowed it’s title. AthenaContinue reading “Deep Delicious Brushing”

Today’s inspirational prompt comes from Pablo Neruda, the Chilean-born poet and Nobel Prize Winner. He wrote more than two hundred odes and had a penchant for writing sometimes-long poems of appreciation for very common or mundane things. You can read English translations of “Ode to the Dictionary” at the bottom of this page, “Ode toContinue reading “Time Travel with Tea”

Our (optional) prompt for today takes its inspiration from Laura Foley’s poem “Year End” and which asks us to write a poem that centres around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for anyContinue reading “Homies”