Seasonal Poetry Prompts for Spring and Summer

Poets often hail the seasons by writing odes to them, and spring and summer are no exceptions.

Rebirth is a common theme in poetry, so the spring season, with its fresh skies and new shoots, is a great inspiration for composition.

Summer is packed with sights, smells, and sounds: splashing water and fresh lemonade; hot dogs from the fair and bike rides on the beach.

All of these things find their way into poetry.

Poetry Prompts for Spring

As always, these poetry prompts are simple and straightforward. Choose one of the three lists and write a poem using every word in that list. Or, to really challenge yourself, try using all the words from all the lists in your poem. You can even mix and match the words on these lists however you want.

Flower Buds	Blue-Gray Skies	Mud and Muck
pepper cream titanic lure smash	telling rinse foul harbor horses	clean squeak scoop woolly bully

Poetry Prompts for Summer

Below, you will find five lists of words. Each list pertains to one of the five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Choose one word from each list. You can mix up the words to write a free-verse poem or choose one word from each list to kick-start each verse in a five-verse poem. If you want to write a poem that appeals entirely to one sense, simply choose the list that corresponds (for example, the SMELL list) and use all the words on that list for your poem. Or, to really challenge yourself, try writing a single poem using all the words from all the lists. That ought to really tickle the senses!

Sight	Sound	Smell	Taste	Touch
Beach ballParade Surfer Tourist Swimsuits Sunglasses (shades) Buckets & Spades Dripping Ice cream Boardwalk Horseshoe crabs Jelly fish Lifeguard boats Beach bags Lightning bugs (fireflies), June bugs Hanging basket Clear blue skies Cotton white clouds	SplashingOutdoor concerts (or beach concerts) Waves crashing Thunder (don’t forget about those summer storms!) Music blaring from convertibles Seagull calls Lawn mowers Fans (A/C) Children playing Ice cream truck/van Buzzing bees, bumble bees buzzing, honey bees	BarbecueChlorine (swimming pool) Suntan lotion (or sunblock) Coconut Ripe peaches Wildflowers Freshly cut grass (wet summers like this one), parched grass (dry summers) Fresh summer rain	Ice creamFresh summer fruits: watermelon, plums, grapes Flavored shaved ice, popsicles Iced tea and lemonade Cotton candy, popcorn Fish & Chips Salt water taffy Vine-ripe tomatoes Sea (salt) water Strawberries and cream Blackberry pie	(Gritty) sandWater (Feet in) flip-flops Burn-your-feet-hot concrete/pavement Warm/hot breezes Freshly watered (or cut) grass Water balloons in the face (via water balloon fights!) Sun on your face

Share Your Poetry Prompts (or Your Poems)

If you write a poem using these prompts, feel free to post it in the comments. Or, post it on your blog and then come back here and drop a link.

Keep writing (and reading) poetry!

If you have any poetry prompts or writing exercises to share, feel free to post them in the comments or send them in as a guest post. And if you have any prompts to add to these lists, share them and I’ll add them in a future update.

Family-Inspired Poetry Prompts

Writers are always looking for new ideas. Sometimes, we look so far and wide for inspiration that we are oblivious to what is right in front of us.

They say “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.” In life, we are presented with many choices, but family is not one of them. It’s pretty much luck of the draw.

The people to whom we are related are beyond our control, which is why they provide excellent inspiration for writing. Read more

Five Poetry Prompts, a Writing Exercise

This year, I’d like to get back to writing poetry regularly. I used to write poetry every single day, and as a result I have hundreds of poems in notebooks and in the writing files on my computer.

For the past few years, I’ve only written a few poems here and there, because the focus of my writing has shifted dramatically.

Poetry prompts are a great way to trigger creativity and sometimes they inspire a truly wonderful piece of poetry.

For today’s exercise, I chose a few poems I’ve written over the years and selected five words from each poem. The objective is to write your own poem using all of the words from any one of the groups below.

Of course, one poem with all of the words would be fantastic! Any combination will do, really, so pluck the words at will. I think it would be fun to compare the ones I wrote to any of the ones you write from this exercise. Will they be about the same topic or have a similar sensibility? Read more