Prompts

IN THE GAME — for my spouse of fifty-two years Today I learned that I would schedule surgery yet another time. Number fifteen, to be exact. They tell me it is not a big deal when the cancer resurfaces in the bladder. We just have to stay on top of it, you say. So, I’m…

  Mother’s Day, 2024 Rounding the corner, we encounter a scent. Perhaps a sound. It takes us back. Back to the long hallway of home. A Sunday afternoon in autumn. Mama ironing her boy’s line-dried, Niagara-starched, cotton shirts for another week of college. Or…

Here is a poem based on Poetry Online’s prompt to write a poem of postcard length that addresses someone and perhaps suggests a place from which the speaker is writing You can go here for the prompt and to read poets’ responses. …

Veterans’ Day is our holiday on November 11 to honor those who have served through our military. On this day in 2024, I am posting a poem found in Come before Winter (published 2024) about a college friend who served in the Vietnam War. I have often thought of…

Prompt:  Write a poem honoring a song or musician or referring to a song or musician.  Here is mine – “Thoughts on Turning Sixty-Eight,” which honors Woody Guthrie, wonderful songwriter who had lots of songs dealing with the Dust Bowl and migrants of…

Write a poem inspired by George Ella Lyon’s poem, “Where I’m From.” When you click the link for the poem, you will find there have been countless others who have written their own poems about the place they are from, their community, the foods,…

Prompt:  Write a poem about a color, but first read Anne Sexton’s “Yellow” (below)  and Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarow.” Yellow When they turn the sun on again I’ll plant…

Today is the anniversary of 9-11. Lots of important poems have been written about this day, including Lucille Clifton’s “September Suite” poems written the week of the tragedy,  Billy Collins’ “Names” and  “Photograph from…

Go to Poets Online – September, 2024 edition – to see the prompt on “the last time,” based on a George Bilgere poem. (I am a BIG fan of Bilgere.) You can read my poem, “You’re Still the One” near the bottom of the page. While…

Prompt: I just learned that the first week in August is International Clown Week. Upon learning that, I thought of a piece I wrote a few years back that appears in my first collection, Strange Fire. It is a memory of my family going to the circus in the 50s. After you…