April Poetry Month | 17/30

Prompt:

Choose a poem that you have already written this month and remix it. Start a new poem from one of the lines in the middle. Tell it from the end to the beginning. Retell the story. Imagine it from a different perspective. Play!

Poem 17/30 excerpt

Still interested in our cheese?

is the same email I get from Murray’s in the Village.

And every single time, I want to say – yes, yes, yes!

Still and always interested in your cheese. Because

cheese means a party and some/any thing to savor.

And god knows I want to have a party! Lively alive

Prompt:

The reading continues! Choose any book off your shelf to get you writing. Turn to a page and jot down words or phrases that inspire or move you. Write a response poem, or write using those words or lines as a jump off point. Reading is always the springboard for my work. I can’t wait to hear what you are reading and the work that is coming after.

Poem 16/30 excerpt

still, still. Still

in the pandemic

& trying hard to not

forget. This moment

everything.

April | Poetry Month | 15/30

Prompt:                    

Read new poems! I am including some favorite poetry collections for young people in this post. Reading helps me to enter my creative mind, and I love poems as keys to opening up dreams, visions and new ideas. Find a new poem that you love and write a response to it. Think of your poems in conversation with each other. And let me know what you are loving to read right now!

Poem 15/30 excerpt

my eyes feel tender

watering at every turn

long to close them – still.            

April | Poetry Month | 14/30

Prompt:

All month, I have been steady on my gratitude and thankfulness in my journal. So my prompt is try it out today. Make a list of all the things you are thankful for. Large and small. Everything that pops up for you: people, food, locations, sayings, items, keepsakes - every thing that comes up for you. Write it down. Draw lines to connect your list. Do these things connect and speak to each other? Use this list to craft your poem. Have everything show up in unexpected and unique ways. Stay thankful!

Poem 14/30 excerpt

Say break wide open the stereotypes and assumptions. Go on and write about being all the parts of you that make you. And oh yeah I think. Oh yeah, oh yeah there is this. All this love on the open mic. All this laughter- all these snaps and hollers off mute. Oh yeah heart. Oh yeah lungs – wilderness of body and voice – stretching up, up, up!

April | Poetry Month | 13/30

Prompt:

Read this gorgeous and needed poem by the always phenomenal Aracelis Girmay called: You Are Who I Love. Who do you see in this poem? What stands out and moves you in this work? Take special care and notice to the world around you. Love it all. Fine beauty and tenderness and love it in all. Use this poem as inspiration, as jump off point, as encouragement to see, see!

Poem 13/30 excerpt

No sense of gravity or weight today. Just

an ache of loss. Acres of dust settling over all

and everything. This afternoon I search

the streets. Highs ending, the reckless trash

and heaps of masks covering the shine of teeth

and every bodies’ smile. But there is this. Too,

the small hands of children all over the city

reaching up to hold the hands of the people

who love them.

April | Poetry Month | 12/30

Prompt:

Teach this brilliant poem by Renée Watson: This Body. Love this poet and poem so much. Check out Renée’s work here and cannot wait to see the poems that rise up. You could use the prompts: My body…This body…My hands…What I feel…

Poem 12/30 excerpt

but I keep reading

all the traumas in the world

hold onto it all.

April | Poetry Month | 11/30

Prompt:

Consider the body. Your own and those around you. Write the body somewhere in the poem. Think of growing - scars and birth marks. Think of the way the body changes and moves. Be tender with it. Write the story of your body. Or a story of a body that you love. Hold it close in a poem.

Poem 11/30 excerpt

I want to know. Can see the trail of her body

at the bookshop. In the schoolyard, in the hills,

trailing after hillbillies. Calling herself one too.

How we were kin those winters of writing.

Reading in the chapel on campus. Stained

glass. My time there was short-lived.

April | Poetry Month | 10/30

Prompt:

Go back to your party planning list and choose someone from the list to write an ode/love poem to. Honor them in the here & now. What memories are connected to them. How do you love them? What do you love about them? I am thinking of all the ways we honor and shout-out the people in our lives. Try it in a poem!

Poem 10/30 excerpt

Be grateful in your journal.

For time to memorialize

someone so many loved.

For being 42 & alive.

For existing with the people

you so, so love.

Close your eyes

hope you get

to keep

being.  

April | Poetry Month | 9/30

Prompt:

Imagine you are throwing a party. Make a list of all the people that you want to invite. Make a list of all the people that you love - the ones who have changed and shaped you. The ones who you want to spend time with, the ones who make you laugh and hold you when you cry. Who is on that list? Who shows up? Choose one person to write a poem or letter to. Tell them why they matter to you - tell them what they mean to you. Once you are done with that one, move on to the next person on your list. Send these notes away - by letter, email, text message or phone call. Spread the love with poems!

Poem 9/30 excerpt

On the day of the memorial—

I cannot decide what to wear.

Since leggings is my uniform

from the waist down. & lately

I wear only three-four shirts

because still, I am exhausted

by fashion or clothing or any

form of ornamentation at all.

But this is different. Outside

April | Poetry Month | 8/30

Prompt:

Write a love poem for your body. Write about the parts that you love and also the parts that are complicated and harder for you to love. Honor your body and all the ways it helps you move through the world. Write about the whole body or individual parts. Show up for your body with words.

Poem 8/30 excerpt

 There are open hearts, lungs.

Bodies exist the way they are.

Whole. Nuanced. Complicated.

We show up together. Joyful.

Bad attitudes. Funky. Lost.

Shoulder-rolled. We exist.

April | Poetry Month | 7/30

Prompt:

Write a poem about a childhood memory. Think about how old you were - why the story matters - why it stays with you. What happened? Who were you with? What do you remember most. Give all the details to help us see this moment in time.

Poem 7/30 excerpt

This – the let go.

This – the lean back.

This – the heavy sigh.

This – the way the body says

sit the hell down.  

April | Poetry Month | 6/30

Prompt:

Make all the lists you can make! Names of flowers, birds, types of cereal, memories, people you have loved, people you have left behind. Make a list of your favorite songs, movies, foods. A list of the planets, the oceans. Make a list of animals that roam the land and sea creatures too. Make a list of your favorite words and then say them out loud. Mix and match the answers from your lists and see if they speak to each other. I tried a few! Now try yours. Play with language. Experiment! Have fun!

Poem 6/30 excerpt

Go weightless. Go

dreamy. Go asleep.

Even typing is funky

& catching my breath

too. Playing catch up.

April | Poetry Month | 5/30

Visit one of my favorite poetry websites: Poets.org to learn more about one of my favorite poetic forms: Haiku. Try your own versions out.

Prompt:

Think of a moment of change in nature and connect it to your own life. What shifts have happened for you. How does the changing world show up for you? What changes have you gone through that could show up in the haiku. Check out a couple of my examples below and write your own!

Poem 5/30 excerpt

Alive with frolic

flowers flourish, flow, feed me

prosper prolific.

Go on watch the day

go all thrive like - peel open

cut away the raw.

April | Poetry Month | 4/30

Prompt:

Consider your origin. Who are your people? Where do they come from? What history do they hold? Write a poem using three names of the people who raised you up. Include the foods and sayings and locations and histories that make you who you are. What songs and television shows belong in this poem? What stories deserve shine? Write them down.

Poem 4/30 excerpt

Laughing

Careening

Wheeling

Steering

Hoofing

from slide

to monkey bars

jumping

from swing

to swing.

Heavy breath

beneath

their masks.

I can see

all their eyes

fire up.

Imagine

their smiles

last & last.

April | Poetry Month | 3/30

Prompt:

Write a poem about a movie or television show that has stayed with you. What does it mean to you? What do you want to tell it? How does it hold meaning for you? What memories or themes are connected to it. Write it all.

Poem 3/30 | excerpt

We agree.

Keanu is a star.

Patrick Swayze too.

All that hip action.

All those glorious tresses.

But it’s more than that too.

First, it’s a raucous ride.

Big waves, Lori Petty’s back muscles,

Bodi aka Bodhisattva. Nirvana.

Enlightened one. Philosophy.

What it means to search for that one

great ride. Oh my god, it’s all of that.

April | Poetry Month | 2/30

Already day #2 and I feel both buoyant and exhausted. Watching, watching the world around me. The weather hovering around 40 degrees and I am reminded how Spring can play tricks - how it blooms and hides. Comes alive and sneaks away from. Carrying us with it all along.

Prompt:

What is blooming around you? What is healthy and alive? What could use some nurturing and love? What needs tending? Write to both of those things in your life.

Poem 2/30 | excerpt

And I step inside myself

to downward dog, Hail Mary,

shoot bourbon or the like,

kaleidoscope, electric slide.

Front flip, back handspring

the way I used to in middle

then high school. Tumbling

up and over myself to a crowd

hollering and rough housing.

Go on be rough house inside

the stretch of my expanse. Widen

my stance, loosen my belt. Wide

and wider. Toe touch back

bend. All the space is mine.

April | Poetry Month | 1/30

Hello all-

It is officially National Poetry Month & I am so thrilled to be writing & poet-ing & community-ing along with you all. This month, I will be writing with Elma’s Heart Circle - a beautiful collective of women writers founded by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor. We send poems to each every day during April. It is like a wave of words. It is blessing and balm.

All month, I will be posting poem excerpts and sharing writing prompts for you to kick off your own writing practice. Hope you will join me & keep those words flowing.

Prompt:

Write about a meal you loved. Who were you with? What did you eat? What did you talk about? Give us every detail of the meal. Did it shape or change you? Did it stay with you? Why? Write it down. Share it with us.

Poem 1/30 | excerpt

Celi pulls up her mask

between bites. Claims

how proud she is

to be Middle-Eastern.

Our food is good

good food. She says.

& Miriam nods hungry like.

But says she is nervous

to eat indoors with all

the other hungry mouths.

Asks if we will be ok.

Not enough answers

but all & everything

is good right now.

is right good now.

now is right. is good,

right? is it good right

now? is now good?

or right? now? is it?

Writing Prompts & Sample Poems

Prompt #1 | What will you do to pass the time? Who will you call? Whose voice do you long to hear?

Prompt #2 | What does it take? What do you need to thrive?

Prompt #3 | What do you want to remember? & hold onto?

Prompt #4 | Make a list of all you are grateful for—

Prompt #5 | Write a haiku that captures your heart during this time.

Sample Poem | Free-Write

Go to sleep: pandemic

Wake up: pandemic

Study the map

chart your heart

navigate distance

call home

deep breath

meditate

make a list

of all the things

you love

love.

Watch Us Rise | Writing Prompts

Hello all-

It was great to see everyone today on the Twitter Live reading of poems from Watch Us Rise. Thank you all for watching. I wanted to add the prompts that I sent out today in case you are looking for some writing activities to do this week.

Prompt #1: Advice Poems: Write a poem where you give advice to yourself, or to your future/past self

Prompt #2: Look at the cover of beautify magazines. In your first stanza, create a found poem using only words/phrases from those covers. In your second stanza, write down all the messages you wish would be in magazines for you.

Prompt #3: Look up ads for beautify products. What are they saying? What are they trying to sell you? Now flip the advertisement and write your own ad - what would you want it to be about?

Start with these prompts & feel free to tag me on social media to share poems or snippets with me.

Thanks all,

Ellen

Watch Us Rise Tour Dates | Winter & Spring