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.