Totally Optional Prompt: Restart

Used to be, you had to flip the power switch on your computer to restart it. (You know, if it got hung somehow.) Now, most computers have a "restart" or "reset" switch.

Do you? As a poet, or in general? What do you do to get restarted on a task or activity that you've dropped, and that's lain fallow for a while?

The Request for this prompt will go up Sept. 30, and that will be the last from Totally Optional Prompts. Thanks, all, for the good ride.

Totally Optional Prompt: Penultimate

"Penultimate" means "next to last", as in "This is the penultimate prompt from Totally Optional Prompts."

First-comers and last-comers tend to get most of the attention. Do you ever think about the penultimates? Those often overlooked middle children, not-quite-bringers-up-the-rear? Write about them for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt.

Totally Optional Prompt: The Hive

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a hive mind? Does something give you hives?

Totally Optional Prompt: "Slowly, he turned..."

In Peter Beagle's very fine short story "Sppok" (available in his equally fine collection, We Never Talk About My Brother), mention is made of a series of vaudeville routines centered around the line "Slowly, he turned..."

Whether there ever were such routines or not, I don't know. But it's a great line, and it forms the inspiration for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt: Write a poem in which someone is walking away, comes to a realization, and turns back... slowly. Milk that dramatic tension!

Come back Thursday and let's share some slow turns.

Totally Optional Prompt: Homework

Sadly, this is my last prompt. Tiel will be back on Wednesday evening and will have one more month of prompts for us before we close the site.

I've enjoyed my time as prompt thinker-upper, probably because as a teacher I love giving homework!

So, that's my last prompt for you: Write about homework.

Thanks to everyone who's been participating. I always looked forward to getting home from school on Thursdays and reading all the poems. I'll miss that but I'll see you around on other sites, I'm sure.

Totally Optional Prompt: Laundry

When I sat down to write this post, I had no idea what the prompt would be and decided just to go with the first thing that popped into my head: laundry. That's probably because I just folded a dark load and have the lights washing right now.

So, what do you have to say about laundry? Do you do your own or does someone do it for you? Do you hang it outside or use a dryer? Do you use fabric softener and bleach?

And what about your dirty laundry? You know those deep, dark secrets. Do you air them or keep them hidden away?

Please join us on Wednesday evening or sometime thereafter to share your poetry.

Totally Optional Prompt: From Here to There

This week try writing a poem that begins with a strong word and ends with that word's opposite.

For example, if the first word of your poem is "beautiful" then the last word should be "ugly."

Hope to see you starting Wednesday evening about 7 EDT with any poem you'd like to share.

Happy writing!

Totally Optional Prompt: Death and Shoes

That's right: Death and Shoes!

Talk about death by writing about a pair of shoes.

Kind of morbid, I know, but I've actually used this prompt with my poetry-writing kids and the results have been great. One girl wrote about a pair of ballet slippers but it was really about her little cousin's death from cancer. And another boy used his grandfather's old boots to write a moving memorial about him and all the hunting trips they took together.

Sometimes, when we focus on the little things, we are better able to deal with the big emotions.

We'll be back on Wednesday evening about 7 EDT and we hope you will be, too, to share whatever you've written this week.

Totally Optional Prompt: Color

What color are you? Not your favorite color but write about what color represents your personality.

Are you as spicy as red spaghetti sauce?
As steady as green pine needles?
As lively as a tangerine?
As boring as chalk?

Tell us about yourself using unique color words.

Or not. It is totally optional, you know!

The request for poems will be up Wednesday evening at 7 EDT.

Totally Optional Prompt: Midnight

Midnight. What might happen at midnight? Besides the date changing, a new day starting, a deal with the devil, the witching hour, a half-moon rising, clocks chiming?

Let us know, if you decide to follow this week's
Totally Optional
prompt! And if not, leave us a link anyway-- on Wednesday or Thursday.

Totally Optional Prompt: Spontaneity/Planning

This week's prompt is: Spontaneity. Or its converse, planning. Do you write off the top of your head? Or do you sit down and plan it out?

Whichever you usually do, try to do the opposite this week.

Totally Optional Prompt: Some random stuff

For this week's prompt, try writing a poem about one, some, or all of the following:
black mice
durien sherbet
a rust storm
blinking lights

Or none of the above. After all, it is
Totally Optional
!

Totally Optional Prompt: Fireworks!

Yes, there were plenty here last night! But for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt, I'd like you to explore some pyrotechnic language.

Go for some really over-the-top images. Pull words you don't normally use out of the dictionary. Or use perfectly ordinary words in combinations you wouldn't expect. Grasshopper soda? Deep travel?

Come back Wednesday evening and leave us a link!

Totally Optional Prompt: Weather

What's the weather like in your neck of the woods? Here in the Northeast of the U.S., we've been having rain almost every day and temps only in the 60s and 70s. (Of course, I missed a week of it because we were in Florida where it was unusually hot!)

What's the weather of your relationships? Hot and sultry? Cold and snowy? Sunny and temperate?

What's the weather of your soul?

No matter which way you use this prompt (or not!), come back on Wednesday evening at 7 pm EDT to leave a link to your poem.

Totally Optional Prompt: Horoscope

Check out your horoscope and write a poem in response to it.
or
You could read yours and your significant other's then begin your poem with one and end with the other one.
or
You could collaborate with a poet friend incorporating both your horoscopes into the poem.
or
You could do whatever you'd like because it is totally optional!

Come on back Wednesday evening to leave a link in the comments.

Totally Optional Prompt: Abecedarian

I love anything to do with the alphabet.

Last week I asked my poetry-writing students to write an abecedarian. They had fun and their poems were surprisingly good.

I looked online for examples but really couldn't find ones I liked. I'm not even sure where I first saw this form but I liked it at the time and always wanted to try one.

I'm not even sure I have this definition right but here's what I told my kids and it seemed to work well:

An abecedarian is a poem in which you concentrate on one letter of the alphabet at the beginning of your poem then let the words morph into the next letter and then the next. etc. You don't have to begin with A; you can start anywhere you want in the alphabet and go from there. You could even go backwards. Your words don't have to be at the beginning of lines and the letters don't have to begin the words, either. The words can just contain those letters.

Hopefully this makes sense and you have fun playing with the letters.

One more thing: the kids were kind of stumped for a way to begin because there wasn't a specific topic so I told them to write about the last strong emotion they had. And off they went.

So, off you go, too! Write an abecedarian about some strong emotion or anything else! It is totally optional, of course.

Wish I knew how to fix Mr. Linky. I'll write the link in but...who knows! Anyway, come on back starting Wednesday evening and leave your link in the comments if he isn't with us.

Totally Optional Prompt: Yard Sale

On my way down to camp yesterday I can't tell you how many "Yard Sale" signs I saw. It stuck in my head, for some reason. So, that's our prompt this week. Write about yard sales.

With any luck, we'll have Mr. Linky back on Wednesday but if not, just leave your links in the comments on Wednesday evening when we request poems.

Totally Optional Prompt: Unexpected visitors

They arrive at your house, in the middle of the night, on a fin afternoon, in the morning drizzle. You're happy to see them, love them but find the time inconvenient, they're the last people in the world you want to deal with right now. But you invite them in regardless.

Tell us what happens next, for this week's
Totally Optional
prompt! Linda will be here Wednesday evening with the request for poems. We don't know yet whether Mr. Linky will be with us or not.

Totally Optional Prompt: Song Lyrics

Some people don't consider song lyrics to be poetry. Others refuse to recognize the distinction.

Song lyrics usually fit a melody, which means they are usually metered. However, the meter is often looser than in, say a sonnet: as Tom Lehrer once wrote and sang, "it don't matter ifyoufitacoupleextrasyllables into a line." Song lyrics usually rhyme, although again the rhyme is often loose or slant. A songwriter can depend on the power of the melody to carry the listener past minor breaks in the sound pattern. And of course there are exceptions to all of the above.

For this week's

Totally Optional

prompt, write a poem you think would make a good song lyric. Come back Wednesday evening. I don't know if Mr. Linky will be with us or not, but if not, you can always leave your link in the comments.

Totally Optional Prompt: Opposites

What happens when opposites combine? Do you get something intermediate, like hot water and cold water blending to make lukewarm? Or do you get something completely different, like fire and water combining to make steam?

Watch for Mr. Linky Wednesday evening!