Poetry Prompts for Spring
Poets often hail the seasons by writing odes to them, and spring is no exception.
Rebirth itself is a common theme in poetry, so the spring season, with its fresh skies and new shoots, is a great inspiration for composition.
Spring is also alive with imagery. From budding flowers to torrential downpours, the entire season provides a wide canvas of color, shape, and sound. And all of these things find their way into poetry.
Read Then Write. Rinse. Repeat.
I’ve recently had several conversations with poets who do not read poetry. This, I understand since I was once a young poet whose reading repertoire was limited to Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein, despite the fact that I was winding my way through my twenties.
There are a myriad of reasons why aspiring poets should read poetry on a regular basis – that’s an entire blog post (and one you can look forward to in the near future).
Today, we’ll skip the reasons and before digging into our poetry prompts, we’ll just take a few minutes to enjoy three essential poems about spring from a few of the greats.
Springtime Poetry
Spring
Song, from Act V, Scene 2 of Love’s Labors Lostby William Shakespeare (1598)
When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
“Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
Today
by Billy Collins
Former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins reads his poems while accompanying animation brings his words to life.
A Little Madness in the Spring
by Emily Dickinson
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown -
Who ponders this tremendous scene -
This whole Experiment of Green -
As if it were his own!
And Now… Your Poetry Prompts
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
- pepper
- cream
- titanic
- lure
- smash
Blue-Gray Skies
- telling
- rinse
- foul
- harbor
- horses
Mud and Muck
- clean
- squeak
- scoop
- woolly
- bully
Share Yours
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 the comments.
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.
Except for Shel and the good Dr., I never dug on poetry too much before. Then I started writing. About two years ago when I was first putting pen to paper, it was children’s stories I was writing. At first I tried just regular prose, but the stories didn’t seem to sing. Once I started writing in pentameter, they seemed to come into full bloom. Now poetry is one of my favorite kinds of writing. Though I still don’t read it. That’s due to a lack of time more than anything else though.
Writer Dads last blog post..An Ode to My Daughter
Shel and Dr. Suess are among my favorite poets. In fact, I get irritated when people treat children’s literature and poetry as less important, because it’s extremely important! I personally need to make more time for reading poetry – I do it, but not nearly enough – and I think it’s essential for a writer because there’s truly no better way to absorb the creative side of language. Some songwriters put out music and lyrics that I consider to be sheer poetry. Stevie Nicks comes to mind. You know, you can listen to poetry when you’re driving or doing other things. Check out a podcast (iTunes) called “Poem of the Day.” It’s one short poem per day – usually about one minute long. Surely, you can squeeze that into your schedule?
Do you happen to have a summary of basic poetry rules?
(for example, what’s the minimum baseline for a poem … when is a poem, not a poem … etc.)
If I have an inner poet, I sure don’t know it. I know you don’t have to rhyme all the time, but I never came across a nice consolidation of the rules of the road.
J.D. Meiers last blog post..Win the Heart the Mind Follows
Well, I am not aware of any such rules unless you are writing a particular type of poem – a haiku or a sonnet, for example. Poetry is pretty much open to your creativity. You don’t have to rhyme. You don’t have to use proper grammar (check out e.e. cummings). You can write it in prose instead of in lines. Poetry is a lawless land.
You don’t seriously want me to write poetry, do you??
–Debs last blog post..Irony
Well, not if you don’t want to
Hi Melissa – I suck at poetry. I may have a go but I doubt whether I’ll post my effort on here – it would be too embarrassing.
I don’t struggle with to and too but I make a lot of typos where I accidentally leave a “o” off.
Hi Cath, One way to get good at poetry is to write it
Another way is to read it. In any case, poetry is great for building your writing and language skills. Yes, I think that in many cases, we know the correct homophones but typos do happen.
this is a poem I got out of “Blue-Grey Skies” -
Under Blue-Grey Skies
it is telling you rinse your hair
where the horses drink
their excrement is not foul
you never pick the pieces
from your boots
you love the smell
lustily drink it in
the clump of their hooves
is as conversation to you
you pet a head hung low
stroke the long muzzle
pat the sides
an apple offered disappears
and when you mount
and the whole world seems
clasped between your legs
you ride off under blue-grey skies
feeling a freedom
Life will gradually
choke out of you….
(Greg Cameron, Poem, Surrey, B.C., Canada, Oct., 2009
incidentally, Greg, over the years, keeps falling hopelessly, and I mean hopelessly, in love with ‘horse’ girls – go figure. Hope I got everything here….)
Very nice Greg. You’ve created a real scene, and I can imagine the poem in vivid images as I read it. You’ve also got sensual triggers, like smell. Awesome! Keep writing!
I’m writing under time pressure here – I’m working with the prompts “Mud and Muck.”
Last Laugh
the sky is grey tired
the crows can’t be bothered
trees droop in mourning
your boots are black shiny
your woolly sweater is nice and clean
you scoop up some pebbles
throw them at a stop sign
you laugh and laugh
only to stop
when some bully grabs you in
a chokehold
forces you to the ground
how you like that huh?
come on!
you squeak gasp
as he rubs your face
in the mud
back and forth
back and forth
why don’t you cry like a little girl?
can’t fight can yuh?
as he leaves
it appears he will enjoy
the last laugh
and clouds pass on
in silence
(Greg Cameron, Surrey, B.C., Canada, Poem, December, 2009 – working in a real hurry here – hope you like it some….”
That’s pretty good for working in a real hurry! I especially like the phrasings “grey tired” and “black shiny.”
I was sitting, staring at a blank page today and googled “poem prompts” which led me here. I am quite grateful to have found this site; I think I will be using the prompts often. Here’s one from the ‘Blue-Gray Skies’ list:
Cleansing
The Slate in the skies is telling;
those flat dull clouds hold
more thunder than a thousand horses,
more lightning than Zeus himself.
I stand outside, parched and praying,
staring at the blue-steel sky; waiting
for the first drops to fall–
to rinse this foul and languid sloth
from my core,
To cleanse myself in a sudden deluge.
I love poetry that deals with nature and mythology. This is excellent! Nice job Colin.