This collection from Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is stunning & needed. Find a book at a local bookstore or the library that inspires you. Choose a poem, line or word as a jump off point and write your own!
Prompt: Tides
What tides are you moving with? What tides are you moving against? How are traveling through time & space? What are you swimming towards or swimming against?
Prompt: What are you navigating right now?
What obstacles are you working your way through? What is holding you back? What is pushing you forward?
Prompt: What are you carrying with you? Who are you taking along for the ride? Who will you forever travel beside?
I saw this image on my way to Marble Hill School for International Studies to teach yesterday. I was thinking how the city is always teaching me. Us. This boat carrying another boat made me think of love somehow too. The many things & people & ideas & visions we carry. Hope these questions open up more doors for you.
Prompt: What is blooming or blossoming for you?
I find myself studying all things in nature lately. The leaves arriving again on the trees. Flowers reintroducing themselves to the world. What is opening up all around you? How do you welcome it in?
Prompt: What is bedrock for you?
What is at the root of who you are? If you subscribe to an idea of core values, what are yours? What is your philosophy of life? What do you cling / hold tight to in order to thrive?
Prompt: Begin Again…
I was visiting an after-school community center in Mott Haven yesterday and saw this building. It instantly made me think of plants & trees losing leaves and then growing them back again. As I maneuver my way through edits on a novel I am working on, it made me think about resiliency and continuing to grow. What needs attention and love in your life? How will you begin again & again & again?
April | Poetry Month | 30/30
Prompt:
So thankful that we have been writing together for 30 days! For the last prompt, we will stay grateful. Keep your list going. Choose something else from your list for another ode or love poem. How can you celebrate all and everything in your life. Thankful for this time, for this month, for poetry!
Poem 30/30 excerpt
You are brilliant wilderness
girls. You are Mars. All planets
remind me of you. Spectacular.
You write poems and dance
you wear headbands and ask
me so many questions I spin.
You make me spin with you
your love revolving. Enclosing.
April | Poetry Month | 29/30
Prompt:
We are so close to the finish line! Today, your prompt is to use a photo of yourself or someone you love - or a photo of an object. Write a poem about the photo, or in the margins of the photo. Tell the story - or speak from the perspective of the person in the photo. Write around it, to it, above it, about it. Hold it and tell the story. I am sharing a photo and poem from my daughter below: Araceli Flores, age 10.
Poem 29/30 excerpt
This photo makes my heart hurt—
is the note I send
when my friend who has moved far
far away shares it
our kids walking home from school
before our lives rocked apart.
April | Poetry Month | 28/30
Prompt:
Keep going! Every year, right around Day #28, I feel like I can’t write any more poems, but I do! So revisit the haiku, or the tanka, or any small poem that might get you to the finish line. There are only two more days to go. Today, I wrote about the park and getting ice cream on this 80 degree day. Keep the poems moving and flowing. Write about a moment - any moment in your day. You got this! Keep writing, keep moving, keep on! To be inspired, check out this amazing book by Richard Wright: Haiku: This Other World
Poem 28/30 excerpt
After staying at the park late
late with Spring sweat
and games of zombie crush.
Let ‘em run reckless
and a little bit wild. Stay
out later. Lean back
loose. Down two beers
when you get home
take all the breaths in
breathe all of them out.
April | Poetry Month | 27/30
Prompt:
One of my favorite prompts is to create a playlist for your life. Choose 7-10 songs that would show up for you. What do they mean for you? How have they moved you through the world? Write lines or short poems for each song and thread together to show what these songs mean and why they matter to you. Here is an example of a playlist that I created with Largehearted Boy for Blooming Fiascoes.
Poem 27/30 excerpt
Tonight—
just searching for the tender.
just reaching for the soft.
just striving for the sleep.
April | Poetry Month | 26/30
Prompt:
I love parks - all parks! Today, we celebrated a friend’s birthday in the park - complete with cheese doodles, lemonade and a massive and so delicious tres leches cake. Here is your prompt. Write about a favorite birthday party, or write about a favorite park - and maybe combine them! And be sure to check out the brilliant PUBLIC PARK zine created by Andy Powell with his beautiful poem along with beautiful photos from DFlo!
Poem 25/30 excerpt
We all love it. Tres leches from the best,
the BEST Dominican bakery on St. Nicholas
Kenya says. And we all have slices
that tumble over the paper plates.
And she hands me extra to bring home.
More for David and for us all later night.
We sing to Kamilah. The girls all cheer,
eat cheese doodles and buttered popcorn
guzzle lemonade. The whole afternoon
feels full of sugar. Whipped goodness
frosts our mouths, our masks,
the sweetness topping the day right off.
April | Poetry Month | 25/30
Prompt:
I love this poem Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. It makes me think of all the small acts of kindness we see every day. Let’s try a poem about those moment. Sometimes I have to remind myself to watch the world and the people in it. Be witness to those moments, those small acts that shape the day.
Poem 25/30 excerpt
Every moment steadying my heart rate
Acknowledge this. Own it. You cannot
do it all, and you shouldn’t try.
It’s ok to sometimes sit
so absolutely still
time evaporates
and you are lost
to yourself
quiet
now.
April | Poetry Month | 24/30
Prompt:
It is Independent Bookstore Day and I cannot thank these generous, blooming, wonderful spaces enough. They are lifeline and buoy. LOVE them all. So much. Your prompt is to write a love letter to a place that has meaning for you. It could be a bookstore, or a restaurant or a place in nature. Why does it matter. Why does it stay, stay with you. Tell us all about it.
Poem 24/30 excerpt
a long ride on the A train
new books, old faces
but it follows me on home
April | Poetry Month | 23/30
Prompt:
Write about a weekend - any weekend. Maybe one that stays with you - a favorite. Maybe you went away from home, or rode the train or went on a road trip with friends. Maybe you stayed home the whole time and cooked for yourself. Maybe you went to a party or a friend’s house for coffee. Craft a poem that includes the whole weekend - from Friday night to Sunday night. Tell us everything that happened!
Poem 23/30 excerpt
Friday afternoon is full of hope—
and I carry that
brimming and booming inside
of me a tumble
life and possibility
each weekend an opening.
April | Poetry Month | 22/30
Prompt:
“If you had only one wish, what would it be?” Miriam Flores, age 7
That’s the whole prompt. Write about your wish. I could not choose just one, and so I wrote about so, so many.
Poem 22/30 excerpt
And I say no violence
no racism
no police
never any guns
or anything to hurt
no hurting
no hunger
no aching
no trauma
no pain
no disease
no pollution.
More poetry
more June Jordan
on the train
on the bookshelves.
More kindness
like Naomi Shihab Nye
writes. More holding.
More kisses in the dark
more sunshine
on playgrounds
more swing-sets
and bicycles.
Say more bread
for everyone
and clean oceans
and never plastic
or anything that hurts
or could hurt
or has a future
of hurting.
April | Poetry Month | 21/30
Prompt:
Go back to the page. Go back to the poems, to the artists. Study them. Watch the way they work. Create your own work. Respond. Cry out. Weep. Ache alongside. Tonight, I return to June Jordan. What are you returning to?
Poem 21/30 excerpt
proclaiming, weeping
studying, holding, shouting
releasing, being.
April | Poetry Month | 20/30
Prompt:
Write about a time that you felt safe and whole. Write about the people that make you feel seen and heard. Write about all the communities that you belong to. Give them love. Shout them out in a poem. This excerpt is for Elma’s Heart Circle - my poetry loves. Thank you all.
Poem 20/30 excerpt
all I want to do
is write with all the women
that I love, love, love
and so that’s what we all do
collective arms for holding.
April | Poetry Month | 19/30
Prompt:
Write an advice poem to your younger self. What would you say? What should you know? Share that knowledge! Here are a couple photos of me from middle school. I have A LOT of advice that I would give to 5th and 6th grade Ellen!
Poem 19/30 excerpt
I spend all my time dreaming
out the car window. Watching the hills
of Kentucky rise up and fall.
Try to steady my heartbeat.
It’s moving too fast
I’m letting it all go.
April | Poetry Month | 18/30
Prompt:
Try out a new form today - one of my favorites - the tanka. The history and form is explained on poets.org. I love the simplicity - I love that it is a poem of longing. I like to think of them as small gifts given away to those you love. Try it out. I am including my tanka below. Would love to read yours!
Poem 18/30 excerpt
The love poem is always yours—
for David
Still longing for you
through another year of blooms
flowers peel awake
and I find myself singing
your name – my future, my love.