Poetry Prompts to Ponder

Thoughts on National Poetry Month and some prompts to ponder by CAG Literary Arts Coordinator and author Dana Shavin

April is National Poetry Month! It’s an open invitation to pay closer attention to the poetry all around you. To do that you must be willing to slow down and notice what you might otherwise not. You must be willing to stay with something a little longer than usual. This month, return to the page without expectations. Linger over a few lines instead of rushing past them—whether you wrote them or you are reading someone else’s. Here are a few questions to sit with. Share your answers!

What kind of poem do you return to again and again?

Do you write more from habit or from impulse?

What’s one line (yours or someone else’s) you wish you had written?

When during the day do you feel most open to language?

What’s something you’ve noticed lately that might become a poem?

Try this: Every day for the rest of April, notice something tiny. Write two lines about it. Then write at least one line about what it points to in your life, metaphorically.

I’ll go first! Something small I noticed today: I have a scar on my right arm where I burned it on the oven last January. I forgot it was there. The metaphor: what is painful for me in the moment often disappears over time, even if the reminder of it does not. This is a possible building block of a poem! Your turn!