Request for Poems:Cinquain

Happy New Year to everyone! Here's hoping 2009 conains lots of poetry!

I volunteered to help Tiel keep this site going and I've enjoyed my first month and hope that it will continue. But, we need help to get the word spread that we are still alive and kicking. So, any advertising you can do for Totally Optional Prompts would be appreciated. Thanks!

How did your cinquain writing go? I find them kind of addicting! Please leave a link to anything you'd like to share.

Totally Optional Prompt: Cinquain

I don't know if you're like me but I'm so glad that Christmas is over and now my school vacation can really begin.

My problem with vacations, though, is that I have a hard time writing. Here I am with extra time on my hands but my brain is MIA!

So, I thought a nice short prompt would be appropriate for this week. (At least for me, anyway!)

Let's try to write a cinquain. Here's a short description of it and a couple of examples:

A Cinquain is a short, unrhymed poem consisting of twenty-two syllables distributed as 2, 4, 6, 8, 2, in five lines. Like the game Mastermind (I think!), it takes a few minutes to learn but a lifetime to master.

An effective cinquain is one that has a shift of focus in it. In other words, it starts simply and innocently but by the end makes a comment about life by showing instead of telling.

A cinquain also has a title to help explain the poem but that title usually does not act as the first line of the cinquain.

Examples:


Love Restored

Curvy,
sexy and sleek…
he admires her body
then takes out the keys for his old
Corvette
~Deborah P. Kolodji


Laramie Night Wind

lonesome
long howl from some
coyote soul . . . hollowed out
down to the heart & a mile from
morning
~Ann K. Schwader

If you have a longer poem in you, you could try writing it as a series of cinquains. Or, you could write anything else you want, of course; we'd still love to see it next Thursday.

Request for Poems: Opposites

Hope you are all enjoying yourselves today regardless of what you are celebrating whether it be Christmas or Hanukkah or just Thursday.

So, what opposites did you write about? Okay, I'll admit that I haven't had much chance to write anything this week but, I'm hoping to catch up on Friday.

Please leave a link to any poem you'd like to share.

Totally optional Prompt: Opposites

First of all, to everybody celebrating a holiday, here's hoping yours is pleasant!

I know holidays are supposed to be these special, magical times, but, most often, they turn out to contain a lot of work and stress and disappointment. And that brings me to this week's prompt: let's talk about opposites. It could be opposite people (like my husband and I are total opposites!), opposite expectations, opposite reactions, etc.

So, lets rub two different things together and see what sparks we can make in our poems.

Come back Thursday (Yikes! That's Christmas day; I've still got so much to do!) or sometime after that when all the hullabaloo is over to share what you've written.

And don't forget to check out the Monday Poetry Train Revisited tomorrow.

Request for Poems: Firsts

Here it is another Thursday and it's time to post your "first" poems.


Did this bring back any memories? Did you find it hard to narrow your ideas down? (I did!) Was it hard to even find the time to write with holiday preparations?


Please leave a link to your poem whether it be a first or not.


Also, don't forget to visit Monday Poetry Train Revisited every Monday and leave a link to any type of poem. This is a great site to share a poem that doesn't fit any of the prompts out there. It's a no-stress place so check it out, please!

Totally Optional Prompt: Firsts

There is something very memorable about the firsts in our lives. I remember my first day of kindergarten, clinging desperately to my mom with one hand and having the teacher, Mrs. Neilson, practically pulling my other arm out of its socket trying to get me away from her. Kind of ironic that I became a teacher!

Anyway, that's the prompt this week: write a poem about a first in your life. The possibilities are endless, really.

First vehicle
First kiss
First marriage
First grade
First flight
First drink

I could go on all day! Instead, I think I'll go write a poem.

Please come back on Thursday to leave a link to your first anything and if this doesn't inspire you, then leave a link to any poem you'd like to share.

Request for Persona Poems

Who were you?
What were you?
Where did you go?
What did you do?

Please leave a link to your Persona Poem in Mr. Linky. Even if you didn't have any luck writing to the prompt, we're still interested in reading anything you wrote this week. (or whenever!)

Totally Optional Prompt: Persona Poem

You know what I like best about poetry? The freedom! I'm able to do whatever I want with words and lines. And I especially feel that way when I write a persona poem. I can be whoever and whatever I want.

So, that's your prompt this week: be someone or something else. Write a poem in the voice of whomever or whatever you'd like. Here's your chance to shed your own skin and be someone or something else. You could be Shakespeare, Obama, Britney Spears, Shaquille O'Neil, an airplane, a coffee cup, anything!

Like Atticus says to Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, you never know other people until you walk around in their shoes. This is your chance to do just that.

Please come back on Thursday to leave a link to whatever you've written this week. Even if you're just yourself, we still want to read about it!

And the most important thing? Have fun! Feel the freedom of being able to do whatever you want with words!

Request for Unsavory Poems

You know, I had a hard time with this one! Here it is my own prompt and it took me all week to come up with something. Hope you had better luck than I did!

Please leave your link to anything you wrote this week, unsavory or not! Mine definitely is!

Totally Optional Prompt: Kyrielle

And what is a kyrielle? Briefly, a poem made up of four-line stanzas (any number of such stanzas) where the last line of each stanza is the same.

Traditionally, kyrielles are rhymed and metered. Many popular songs take this form. I think it might be interesting to write a free-verse kyrielle that reatins the four-line stanza structure and the repetition. Or you could try your hand at the traditional form: you can find a couple of examples here

Or you could try something else entirely. After all, it's
Totally Optional
!

Remember to leave your permalink on the Wednesday evening post.

Request for Poems: Sound

Let's hear those sound links, TOPers! (I had a really frustrating time getting sound to work on my blog, so don't feel bad if you had trouble!)

Totally Optional Prompt: Sound

Poetry has wandered far from its roots as an oral art. Time was when most people encountered poetry exclusively as a sung or spoken thing; mass-market printing and widespread literacy, which we now take for granted, are recent inventions. They've also meant that most poems now will be read by far more people than they are heard.

Technology has begun to reverse the pendulum oh so slightly. It's now possible to record poems and songs cheaply and easily and make them available in a wide variety of formats.

I'm working on developing audio capacity on my blog, and may eventually put together a collection of poetry recordings. In the meantime, I'd like TOPers to post sound links for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt.

If you don't have some kind of sound enabled on your blog (or your MySpace or SoundClick or whatever page), then share your thoughts about poetry as an oral medium. Tell us about readings you've given or readings you've been to. Or link to recordings of other people reading poetry: there's plenty of good stuff out there.

Enjoy!

PS: Gautami, if you didn't see my response to your question last week: TOP has been on its current schedule for over a year, and I'm reluctant to change it and make everyone go through the adjustment. Unless (a) there's a good reason and (b) no-one objects. You didn't mention what your reason was, and I'll leave it up to other TOPers to let me know if there's an objection.

Request for Poems: Expectations

So how did we go about creating expectations (and then satisfying, inverting, or ignoring them), TOPers?

Totally Optional Prompt: Expectations

This week's
Totally Optional
prompt is to write a poem that creates expectations. Specific ones.

You may choose to extend the poem to fulfill the expectations. Or to have something completely unexpected happen. Or leave the reader to fill in what happens: there can be a lot of fun in that.

What are some of the ways in which poems can create expectations? Mood and tone are certainly ways. Look at readwritepoem's recent "gothic" prompt for some good examples of mood poetry. Another is by setting a scene: an angry woman paces up and down, looking at her watch. The door opens. Another is by pacing: a poem can start off slow and accelerate, or start off fast and then slow and become dreamy and contemplative.

Formal poems create their own expectations: a poem can satisfy by fulfilling the form, or surprise by violating it (in order for that to happen, the poem has to go with the form at least part way).

Come back Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, when Mr. Linky appears to usher in another week's worth of poetry!

Linda will be taking over as host as of Nov. 29th's prompt: please be ready to give her a warm welcome.

Request for Poems: Marketplace

Good news, TOPers: Linda Jacobs of Linda's Poems has volunteered to help out. Linda, I'll be sending you an invite to the TOP blog shortly (hopefully this weekend). You can take over for December if you wish, or January if you'd prefer.

Didn't get out to the market this week. Did other folks?

Totally Optional Prompt: Marketplace (and announcements)

TOPers: first, a reminder. Responses to the prompt should go on the Wednesday evening post, not on this post.

Second: Mike McCulley and I started Totally Optional Prompts a little over a year ago, when Poetry Thursday went down. Poetry Thursday has since been reborn as readwritepoem, and is going great guns. In addition, a bunch of new prompt sites have sprung up, including Poefusion, the new Writer's Island (Writer's Island Journals), the new Monday Poetry Train (not strictly a prompt site, but devoted to poetry), Miss Rumphius's Poetry Stretch, One Single Impression (formerly One Deep Breath), the monthly/bimonthly Cafe Writing, and more that I haven't time to list. Plus writing prompts that are not specifically for poetry, like Sunday Scribblings, Weekend Wordsmith and 3 Word Wednesday. It's gotten to the point where I have trouble keeping up with the prompts I follow, and I question whether it's worth having that many prompt sites active.

Plus, I'm finding keeping TOP going by myself to be a bigger job than I really wanted to take on. I put a lot of work into the early prompts, trying to prompt people not just to write poetry but to really think about the process and the goals writing poetry and to stretch their abilities in different directions. Lately, I simply haven't had the time.

So here's the deal: One way or another, I'll keep TOP going in the present format through the end of the year. There will be some free-prompt weeks coming up around the holiday seasons, but there will be a Prompt and a Request for Poems every week (barring disease or disaster on my part).

I would like someone from the TOP community to step up as co-host for alternate months. Don't feel you have to write the same kind of prompts as either Mike or myself; all I'd ask is that you are reasonably reliable about getting four (usually) prompts and requests out per month.

After the new year, if I don't have a volunteer for co-host, the format will change to either biweekly or monthly. I hope that the quality of the prompts will improve; if I can't find the time even on a reduced schedule to write the kinds of prompts I want to write, I'll shut TOP down. I want TOP to be not just about producing poetry but about improving us all as poets, and if I as host can't put in that much effort I really can't expect anyone else to.

Feel free to leave comments or emails about this. As I say, nothing will change until after the new year, and I'll try to post ahead of time what's going to happen, so there should be no surprises.

Now, for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt:

A marketplace can be a lot of things. A farmer's market with local produce and livestock. A mini-mart full of plastic packages. An economic abstraction. But real or imaginary, a marketplace is a place to buy, sell and trade; a place to meet other people doing the same.

This week let's consider poetry in relation to marketplaces. Have you ever seen or heard poetry performed in a marketplace? Ever marketed your own poetry, or someone else's? Bought or sold a poem or a book of poetry?

Request for Poems: Election

Sound off, TOPers! What are your thoughts on elections?

Totally Optional Prompt: Election

For those of us in the US, there's just a week and a half left until election day. If you live in a state with early voting or vote-by-mail, you may have voted already.

This is a good time to reflect on elections in general and this election in particular. You don't have to say whom you're going to vote for (or have already voted for), but feel free to. Or you could reflect on the importance of elections. Or the lack of importance, if you happen to feel that voting doesn't make a difference. Discuss the process. Comment on particular races.

Or write about something else entirely: it's
Totally Optional
!

Remember that most people will leave their links on the Wednesday evening/Thursday morning post (the one with the Linky): if you leave your link here people may not see it.

Request for Poems: Justice/Injustice

Stories of justice unexpected, justice deferred, justice that should have happened and didn't... What'd we come up with, TOPers?

Totally Optional Prompt: Justice/Injustice

Write about an act of justice or an act of injustice. It could be something you imagined, something you saw, something you read or heard about. Come back Wednesday evening or Thursday morning and leave us a link (if you leave your link on this post, people may not see it).

Or write about something else entirely. Remember, it's

Totally Optional

!

Request for Poems: Internal Rhymes

What do you say, TOPers: did we get some rhymes inside our lines this week?

Totally Optional Prompt: Internal Rhymes

TOPers, sorry for the late prompt: my plans for this weekend didn't go as planned.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, let's try to use internal rhymes. Try rhyming a word in the middle of a line with the word at the end of the line. Or try rhyming the word at the end of a line with a word in the middle of the next line.

Examples of forms that use internal rhyming are are climbing rhyme and than-bauk.

Request for Poems: Discoveries

TOPers, let's hear your views of history this week!

Totally Optional Prompt: Discoveries

This week's

Totally Optional

prompt is discoveries. Discoveries of what? Places, perhaps-- although one often finds, when one gets there, that others have been there before. Ideas-- though some claim that the same is true of ideas.

What discoveries in history do you think have been important?

Request for Poems: Revisitation

Where'd we go back to, TOPers?

Totally Optional Prompt: Revisitation

Sorry this is late, TOPers, I'm still in transit. By Wednesday I should be back home and on track.

For this week's prompt, revisit a place, person, or idea that was once familiar and that you haven't seen in a long time. Has it changed, or have you?

Request for Poems: Free Prompt

Bring 'em on, TOPers!

Prompt: Free Prompt

I'm on the road this week and don't have time to put a prompt together. So, for this week at TOP: share whatever you'd like. The only part that isn't

Totally Optional

is: share something!

Request for Poems: Blank Verse

Woops! didn't get around to putting this up last night!

Bring on the blank verse, TOPers!

Totally Optional Prompt: Blank Verse

This week, let's write a poem in blank verse. That means it doesn't have to rhyme, but it does have have meter.

You can use the old workhorse, iambic pentameter. Or branch out, and pick a less usual meter from this list. Or do something else entirely: after all, it's

Totally Optional

!

If you do decide to write a poem in meter, remember that meter is not just about the number of syllables. Iambic pentameter doesn't always have ten syllables, it can have nine or eleven. What's important is that five and only five syllables are stressed, and they alternate with unstressed syllables.

These examples are all from Shakespeare:

Standard IP: “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” (Sonnet XVIII)
Headless IP: “If the true concord of well-tuned sounds” (Sonnet VIII) (9 syllables)
IP with a feminine ending: “Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing” (Sonnet LXXXVII) (11 syllables)

If you're in doubt about the meter of a line, read it aloud. This can't be said often enough: READ IT ALOUD.

Play around with iambic tetrameter (same alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, but only four stresses to a line), or dactylic (Hickory Dickory).

Come back Wednesday evening and leave your permalink with Mr. Linky or in the comments section. Please note that if you leave your link on this post instead of the Wednesday post, people may not know to look for it.

Request for Poems: Conversation

What did we have to say for ourselves-- or to each other-- this week, TOPers?

Totally Optional Prompt: Conversations

Write a poem in the form of a conversation among at least two speakers. They can be people real or imagined, animals, plants, inanimate objects, or anything else you can think of. You could use direct or reported speech.

Or you could write something else entirely. Since the prompt is
Totally Optional
.

Wednesday evening, I'll put up the Request for Poems and you can leave your pemralink in the Linky or in the comments.

Request for Poems: Time to Leave

TOPers, please join me in a big thank-you to my co-host and co-founder, Mike. He'll be missed.

Anyone interested in coming aboard as co-host, let me know. You don't have to make a permanent commitment, but I'd like you to be prepared to host for at least a month.

On to this week's links...

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Time to Leave'

On Aug 30,1965, Casey Stengel announced his retirement after 55 years in baseball. Today I am announcing that after one year at TOP it's time for me to leave and make room for someone else. The challenge this week is to write a poem about 'Time to Leave'.

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With any kind of luck I'm out camping and birding where it's warm and dry. Before leaving I posted Neglected Grave , which is definitely about leaving.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, Tiel Aisha Ansari will post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'One-Way' Poems

It's time to throw your poems on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'One-Way' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'One-Way'

On Aug 23, 1617, the 1st one-way streets were established, and it happened in London. This week's challenge is to create 'one-way' poems. I don't have a clue what that means but I'm interested in finding out.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Edgar Allen Poe' ms

It's time to throw your poems on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Edgar Allen Poe' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Edgar Allen Poe'

Edgar Allen Poe once said, 'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.' The challenge this week is to see what Poe can inspire.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Three Dog' Poems

It's time to throw your poems on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Three Dogs' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Three Dogs'

It hasn't been a 'three dog night' around here for a long time, like since the last ice age, none the less the prompt this week is 'Three Dogs'. The challenge is to write three short poems about dogs, or the animal of your choice. They can be about three dogs, or three aspects of one dog, or the animal of your choice.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Lost Stuff' Poems

It's time to throw your cards on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Lost Stuff' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Lost Stuff'

I imagine we all have things we identify with. Heirlooms, artifacts, favorite toys and security blankets. With wild fires, wild weather and hard times we can lose our 'stuff' and the part of our identity that goes with it. The challenge this week is to write about lost stuff, lost identity.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request for Poems: That's Funny

TOPers, what'd we find to tickle our funnybones this week?

Mike will be taking over as host for the month of August, unless someone else cares to volunteer.

Totally Optional Prompt: That's Funny

I won't be available this evening so I'm putting up this week's prompt early.

Write a humorous poem.

It could be a limerick. It could be a poem that tells a funny story. It could be a familiar joke rephrased into poetry. It could be about something that really happened, something imaginary, or something that may not have happened but that everyone nonetheless knows to be true.

Or it could about something else entirely. After all, it's

Totally Optional

!

Come back Wednesday evening or Thursday morning to leave a link!

Request for Poems: Foreign Lands

What distant places did we visit, TOPers? Or did we find foreignness in our own backyards?

Prompt: Foreign Lands

Write about a foreign country. If you've never been to one, invent one. Actually, even if you have been to one, feel free to invent one.

Or write about something else entirely, since it's

Totally Optional

!

Request for Poems, Ghazal

TOPers, did you enjoy the ghazal? Or do you have something else to share with us today?

Prompt: Ghazal

The ghazal is one my favorite forms: flexible enough to permit a wide variety of approaches, yet has a distinct flavor of its own. Loosely speaking, a ghazal is made up of couplets where each couplet ends with the same word or short phrase. Each couplet should stand on its own as a short poem in itself, though all are expected to be thematically linked.

For some excellent examples of contemporary ghazals, visit The Ghazal Page

For more technical (and disputatious) definitions, read this essay

and then try writing your hand at writing a ghazal. Or not. Remember, it's

Totally Optional

!

Request for Poems: Tempo

Aak! Sorry, everyone. I spaced putting up the Request last night.

I'll transfer all the links from people's comments to Mr. Linky. If you're just logging in now, please leave your link here:

Totally Optional Prompt: Tempo

It's summer here in the US. School is out. For some of us, the pace of life is slower; others may find themselves busier. Even if there's more to do, though, the hot weather seems to slow most people down.

Pacing and tempo are very important in poetry as well. Compare the breathlessly rapid lines of Emily Dickinson's Wild Nights with the slower but inexorable train-roll of Nazim Hikmet's Things I Didn't Know I Loved. Notice how Richard Hugo's Driving Montana accelerates through the last few lines. How does he accomplish this? Look at the tempo changes in Carl Sandburg's Chicago and Tom Sleigh's Augusto Jandolo.

Write a poem and pay careful attention to the pacing. Make it slow or fast, accelerating or decelerating. Consider the effects of line length and punctuation. Pay special attention to the verbs you use.

Come back Wednesday night or Thursday morning and leave us a link to your

Totally Optional

poem, or to something else entirely.

Request For 'First Giraffe' Poems

It's time to show your cards, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'First Giraffe' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

I'm through for a while so Saturday night Tiel Aisha Ansari will put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'First Giraffe'

The first giraffe In France arrived In Paris on June 30, 1827. Gosh, I wonder what that was like. And, I wonder what is like that.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Summer' Poems

It's time to show your summer hat, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Summer' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Summer'

The June 21 is the first day of summer, which makes this a time of transition into whatever summer represents. The challenge this week is to write 'like summer', or 'like summer is going to be'.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Flowers' Poems

It's time to throw your flowers on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Flowers' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Flowers'

This is the time of year when we get, or should get, flowers on the trees and in the garden. The challenge this week is to write 'like a flower'.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Reflections on the Primary' Poems

It's time to throw your reflections on the table, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Reflections on the Primary' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Reflections on the Primary'

The recently concluded Democratic caucuses and primary elections will result in the nomination of Barack Obama. Write a poem that reflects on this unprecedented, overrated, historic, conflicted, significant, never ending event that is only an intermediate step in the election process.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For 'Storms and Hurricanes' Poems

It's time to throw your poem on the table, and see what the other poets have in their hands. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Storms and Hurricanes' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

Prompt: Hurricane Season

Tropical storm season officially starts tomorrow, June 1, but we've already had our first one of the year: Arthur.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, write about storms or hurricanes. Get into the sensory detail. Talk about the color of the sky, the taste of the air, the feel of the breeze. Have you ever been close enough to a lightning strike to smell ozone?

Mike will be your host for the month of June. Remember, if you have any suggestions for a prompt, feel free to leave them in a comment or email one of us.

Request for Poems: Absent Friends

In keeping with this week's theme, a big Welcome Back! to no-longer-absent friend Sue of Tumblewords.

Prompt: Absent Friends

Sorry for the late prompt! We had thunderstorms and power outages at our house last night and I thought it wisest to leave the computer off.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, write about someone who's missing from your or someone else's life. Either or both could be a real or an imaginary person. Try to make the person who's missing (rather than the narrator of the poem) the focus of interest. Try to make them real and alive.

Request for Poems: Triolet

Did you write a triolet this week? Or did you decide to do something else altogether? It doesn't matter as long as it's poetry!

Prompt: Triolet

So what exactly is a triolet? Here are the rules, according Poets.org.

The attraction of the triolet is that it's short: there are only eight lines total, and five unique lines. But the essence of the triolet is not only repetition, but surprise in repetition. The challenge is to make the repeat lines mean different things, instead of simply repeating them.

You can change the relationship of the words in the repeat lines to the lines before and after, by manipulating the punctuation. Also, as with other repetitive forms such as villanelles and sestinas, modern poetic conventions allow the repeat lines to vary a little. Of course, if you let them vary too much, you lose the impact.

Read some fine example triolets

and remember it's

Totally Optional

!

Request for Poems: Symbolic Poetry

TOPers, what's cooking in the symbol kitchen?

Prompt: Symbolic Poetry

Sorry for the late prompt! We went out of town unexpectedly yesterday and had a wrangle with the phone company earlier today.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, write a poem in which something or things represents some other thing or things. You could use an object to symbolize an idea. Or a taste to represent a feeling. Or a color to stand in for an animal.

You can let the poem make clear what's being represented. Or not. Invite your readers to use their imaginations.

Request for Poems: Transformation

TOPers, did we get out there and make some changes happen? Or were we inspired by something else altogether this week?

Prompt: Transformation

This week's

Totally Optional

prompt: Write a poem in which something is transformed into something completely different.

Air into water. Flesh into glass. Furniture into livestock. Politics into a gavotte.

Request For Poems 'Like a Cowbird'

It's time to throw your poem on the table, and see what the other poets have in their hands. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Like a Cowbird' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

I'm through for a while so Saturday night Tiel Aisha Ansari will put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Like a Cowbird'

Cowbirds are brood parasites, they go to the nest of another specie, such as a song sparrow, toss out an egg and lay one of their own. The song sparrow then raises the cowbird chick. The aspect I find fascinating is that the cowbird grows up and knows it's a cowbird and not a sparrow. It talks like a cowbird, hangs out with cowbirds, and knows to lay its eggs in other bird's nests. It seems to learn nothing from its 'parents'. The challenge this week is to write 'like a cowbird'.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems 'Late Spring'

It's time to throw your hat in the ring, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Late Spring' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

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The drama this week was a truck accident that took out the 'fiber' that connects me to the outside world. All day Tuesday I was uncertain whether I'd be here tonight. I don't know what happened to the truck.
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Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Late Spring'

Spring has been late this year, and the spring migration's too. Today we got cloudy, cold, snow, and slush. My social life is in a chill too. The challenge this week is the big chill, cold weather, and 'late spring'.

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And, Billy Jones is running the 'poet laureate of the blogosphere' competition at the Blogging Poet . Voting opens Apr 21 and ends Apr 29th. Several TOP regulars have been nominated.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems

It's time to throw your cards in the ring, and see what the other poets have in their hands. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'A Person' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

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The Poetry Super Highway is sponsoring another Great Poetry E-Book Free-For-All. They are collecting E-Books this month and will provide a free poetry exchange on May 1. Check the above link for details.

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Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'A Person'

Carl Sandburg wrote about people from time to time. Sometimes historical figures like Lincoln or Billy Sunday, and sometimes a stock character (i.e. waiter, steel worker). This week's challenge is to think of a specific person and write about them.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request for Poems: Mythology

Well, TOPers: what sort of inspiration did we find this week? In mythology, or elsewhere?

Totally Optional Prompt: Mythology

This week's prompt comes from Sue at Tumblewords: Mythology.

A few examples to get you started:
Odin's Gift-- collection of Norse classical poems and contemporary poetry inspired by Norse mythology
Poems of Greek Mythology-- two translations of Sappho and a poem by Yeats
Pandora's Box-- by yours truly

Request for Poems: Regional Poetry

First, an announcment: Billy the Blogging Poet is taking nominations for Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, 2008. Click over to BloggingPoet.com and vote for your favorite blogging poet. Voting begins April 21 (I'll try to post a reminder).

Now, on to this week's poetry, regional or otherwise!

Totally Optional Prompt: Regional poetry

Regional poetry is poetry that carries the flavor of a distinct region. It may evoke the landscape or the culture. The smells or the food. It may be in dialect.

Regional: the Catskills, the Cascades, Catahoulas, catfish gumbo
Not regional: McDonald's, malls, Milky Way bars, Motorola

Here are some poems that have a strong regional flavor:

Thetsane Blues by Rethabile Masilo
Ay, ay, ay, the black grifa by Julia de Burgos
Our Land by Yannis Ritsos
Daybreak in Alabama by Langston Hughes

Come back Wednesday night or Thursday morning and leave us a (gentle reminder) poem with a regional feel. Or, if you don't use the
Totally Optional
prompt, leave us a poem anyway.

Request for Poems: Novelty

I've often been inspired by novels to write poems. So far, not the other way.

This week I'm posting a link to a poem in honor of one my very favorite novels: The Phoenix and the Mirror, by Avram Davidson. If you haven't read it, you're missing a truly stunning experience.

What did novels bring up for the rest of us TOPers?

Totally Optional Prompt: Novel?

First, a quick reminder: TOP is a poetry community. That doesn't mean we don't like other kinds of stuff. We just prefer that your posts include poetry.

Now, on to this week's

Totally Optional

prompt:

Have you read a novel recently that you liked? That you hated? That moved you?

Have you ever imagined you were a character in a novel? Have you fallen in love with a character in a novel? Been on imaginary adventures with characters from novels?

Have you read novels with poems in them? Poems with novels in them? Have you been inspired by a novel to write a poem?

Request for Poems: Get Surreal

TOPers, how's surreality looking these days?

Totally Optional Prompt: Get Surreal

Merriam-Webster defines "surreal" as "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream". Wikipedia says that surrealist works "feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur".

Surrealism is not made up of completely random elements thrown together any old how. A surrealist creation has its own coherency, its own mood, and its own imaginative logic.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, I'm offering mostly visual inspiration. Browse some famous surreal artworks at

Mark Harden's Artchive

and some contemporary surreal art at

Thrilling Wonder: Surreal Art

Come back Wednesday night or Thursday morning and let us know how it felt to get surreal!

Request for Poems: Smoke and Mirrors

Well, TOPers? Were you blinded by the smoke, or dazzled by the mirrors? Or did you go somewhere else altogether?

Totally Optional Prompt: Smoke and Mirrors

Check the sidebar: Sue of Tumblewords has listed a new collection with us!

Sue's also responsible for this week's

Totally Optional

prompt: Smoke and Mirrors. Check the Wikipedia link for more info. Thanks, Sue!

Request for Poems: Different Voices

First a housekeeping note: In the sidebar, you'll see a new participant collection. Yup, s'mine!

Now: Let's hear those voices!

Totally Optional Prompt: A different voice

As poets, most of us develop our own characteristic voice that we feel comfortable using. Perhaps it resembles our normal speaking voice; perhaps not.

But have you ever considered deliberately trying to use a different voice? To not sound just like yourself?

The poems below will give you a look at a variety of different poetic voices. Consider how your poetic voice is like, or differs from, each of these. Think about how you might use a different kind of voice. Use these poets for inspiration.

Walt Whitman: A Paumanok Picture

Emily Dickinson: "My Wheel is in the dark"

Federico Garcia Lorca: Adam

Amiri Baraka: leroy

Come back Wednesday night/Thursday morning and leave us a link to a poem you've written for this prompt, or something else you've written, or anything at all poetic. Remember, it's
Totally Optional
!

Request For Poems

It's time to throw your cards in the ring, and see what the other poets have in their hands. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Send a Message' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

I'm through for a while so Saturday night Tiel Aisha Ansari will put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Send a Message'

Ancient Chinese poems are often messages. A soldier writing back from the front. A traveler writing ahead, or behind. A government official writing from a distant assignment, or exile. This weeks challenge is to contemplate a real or imaginary situation and send a message.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems

It's time to throw your hat in the ring, and see what the other poets have on their minds. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Romance' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks, or any other remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is Romance

This week's challenge, a special challenge for me, is to write a romantic poem. I've never been mistaken for a romantic and have no idea what makes a poem romantic, so I need a little help. When I write something how can I tell if it's romantic, what will it look like? What makes a story into a romantic story? What does romantic mean anyways?

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Poems to the Editor

It's time to show your cards, and read what the other poets brought to the table. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Poem to the Editor' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Poem to the Editor'

It's nice that we poets read each other's stuff but it's even better to get published to a new audience, and that's why a 'Poem to the Editor' is important to me.

The challenge is to write a letter to the editor. To get the letter published the title should make the subject clear, it should express an opinion, have a novel approach to the issue, and have a clever or humorous twist at the end.

This time I'm going to write about attending the Washington Democratic Caucus. Since the candidates haven't already been selected it's the first time in decades our caucus has meant anything, it's like being in Iowa or New Hampshire, the 'always first' states. If the poem's any good I'm going to send mine in to National Public Radio or Washington Week (PBS), along with the blog URL of course.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request For Mystery Thriller Poems

It's time to show your cards, and read what the other poets brought to the table. The Linky widget included with this posting is a fine way to leave a link to your poem inspired by the 'Mystery Thriller' prompt, or any other poem you want to share. Comments are available if Linky doesn't work for you, or you want to add encouraging remarks.

Saturday night I'll put up the next Totally Optional Prompt. And, thanks for your support.

The Totally Optional Prompt is 'Mystery Thriller'

This week's challenge is to write a mystery, which is not the same as a puzzle or a riddle. As near as I can tell there needs to be potential threat or peril, suspense that it could happen, and then something else happens. There might be a shocking crime, a dreadful criminal, a breathtaking getaway, or a lost opportunity. You might also have some useful suggestions on how to write a mystery thriller.

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Remarks on the prompt, your latest poetry discovery, or this 'poetry exchange' blog can be made as comments to this posting. Late Wednesday night, between one rerun and another, I'll post a Request For Poems, where you can leave a link to your poem inspired by the prompt, or any other poem you want to share.

Request for Poems: Why You're Alive

TOPers, why are we here?

Over to Mike for the month of February! Unless someone else would like to host.

Totally Optional Prompt: Why You're Alive

This week's prompt is a quote suggested by paisley:

"When you were called upon to speak, you were supposed to say why you think you're alive, why you were born, and why you're still around: What are your reasons? Everyone needs to come up with his or her own personal answer."

From a novel called Diary of a Heretic, by Kathleen Maher.

For an extra twist... try responding to this prompt without using the word "I" (me, my, mine). And remember, both the prompt and the twist are
Totally Optional
!

Request for Poems: Sonnet

TOPers, what'd we come up with this week?

Of course you know I wrote a sonnet: I find them addictive.

Totally Optional Prompt: Sonnet

Perhaps you associate sonnets with Shakespeare, or with love poetry. Perhaps you think they're obsolete, or difficult, or pointless. All of those things might be true, or they might not; it's all in how you look at it.

Take a look at some contemporary sonnets:

Susan Palnick: Room 9

David Gwilym Anthony: Water Bearer

Margaret Menamin: Blue Collar Sonnets (pdf)

You can also find lots of good sonnets at Sonnet Central and Contemporary Sonnet.

If you need to review the form, there are good explanations with examples here.

As always, remember the prompt is
Totally Optional
!

Request for Poems: The Magician

Check out the sidebar: sbpoet has added her collections to the TOP participant collections list!

Anyone else with a collection to advertise? (Sue? Rachel? Dale?)

Also remember: if you have an idea for a prompt-- or better yet, if you'd like to host TOP for a month-- leave us a comment.

Now a confession: I had no idea whatsoever where I was going to go with this prompt... it just came to me. I can't wait to see where everyone else went with it!

Totally Optional Prompt: The Magician

"The Magician" from the Rider-Waite Tarot.

He represents the potential of a new adventure, chosen or thrust upon one. A journey undertaken in daylight, in the Enlightenment Tradition. He brings things out of the darkness into the light. He explores the world in order to master it. He is solar consciousness.

He embodies the lesson of “as above, so below.” The lesson that mastery in one realm may bring mastery in another. He also warns of the danger of applying lessons from one realm to another.

He transcends duality. He’s learned the fundamental elements of the universe, represented by emblems of the four suits of the tarot already broken apart and lying on the table before him.

--interpretation excerpted from Wikipedia

Request for Poems: In the Ear

So, TOPers: what have we heard? Hopefully it wasn't in one ear and out the other.

Totally Optional Prompt: In the Ear

Most poetry (most writing in general) is visually oriented. The flash of color as a bird crosses your line of sight: maybe the sound of its song as an afterthought. The brilliance of a rainbow or a rose. Sounds tend to be neglected.

Yet we're surrounded by a vast and rich universe of sound at all times. These four poems are attempts to open the door inside the ear and let in some sounds.

Alicante Lullaby - Sylvia Plath
Reapers - Jean Toomer
What the Ear Said - Oliver de la Paz
A White Turtle under a Waterfall - Wang Wei

What do you hear?

Request for Poems, Poem to the Editor

Well, TOPers, what'd we have to say to our local papers this week? If you actually sent a letter, let us know in the comments. (I didn't, mine was just too silly.)