Poetry Challenge #161-Love Me Some D-E-S-S-E-R-T
Crumpet, Pumpkin, Sugar, Cupcake, Sweetie…the variety of ways we call loved ones by dessert names make me want to burst into song: Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch…Can’t help myself!
Especially not today, Oct. 14th, officially, unapologetically, National Dessert Day! Or, as I prefer to call it, Don’t Forget What Erma Said Day:
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart. ~ Erma Bombeck
7-Minute Poetry Challenge #161
Love Me Some D-E-S-S-E-R-T
Dessert! There’s always room for dessert! Cindy’s niece and nephew say everyone has a dessert stomach separate from their very full dinner stomachs. If you ask my kids if they have room for dessert, the standard answer is “YES! And it’s shaped just like an ice cream cone!”
List as many kinds of dessert as you can think of. Put your list into some sort of order: biggest to smallest? best to worst? colors of the rainbow? alphabetical?
Write a 2-4 line refrain to stick into your list a couple times.
This will be a sweet, sweet poem!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
Love Me Some D-E-S-S-E-R-T Playlist:
Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch sung by The Four Tops
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than SIXTEEN HUNDRED days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #160-Walk or Bike to School Day!
With this new wonky school year—with all the variations—underway, today’s designation as National Walk or Bike to School Day (Oct 7) may be wonky, too.
Check the date on this poster…brings Carly Simon to mind: “Rolling around again. How did you get to school 5, 15, 25 years ago?
Some places, just as they do every year, are holding Walk to School Parades—with everyone socially distancing, of course!
For many, who used to ride buses and carpool but now attend classes online, that walk to school, might be just a few steps. Whatever your commute, here’s a chance to step out—physically & mentally!
Poetry Challenge # 160
On My Way To School. . .
Happy Walk & Roll Day! Take a walk or bike to school today—even if only in your mind. Rev up that Time Machine! Note what you see. Look closer. What words can you use to describe this object? What other thing does it look like?
Write a poem describing your walk. Title it
“A Walk in/around/through ___________”
Norman’s on the roll to school!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than SIXTEEN HUNDRED days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #159-Chew On This!
Double mint chewing gum/it’s the one/tastes so fun/made for me and you…
For much of my young life, that jingle—like the gum it touted—was stuck in my head. I resurrected it and a few others especially for today, September 30th—otherwise celebrated as National Chewing Gum Day!
Gift for my 17th birthday & blatant product placement…
“Get your skis shined up, grab a stick of Juicy Fruit — the taste is gonna move you! Move you up! Move you out! The taste is gonna move you when you pop it in your mouth!
Juicy Fruit is gonna move ya! It’s got a taste that gets right through ya!”
Along with digging through drawers and bags for a stray stick, I dug up some chewing gum history (and finally broke down and “treated” myself to a chipped gumball from my ancient dispenser.) Chewing on:
“Kiss a little longer, stay close a little longer, hold tight a little longer — longer with Big Red!”
Seems as long as humans have been walking upright, they’ve been chewing some sort of gum. Evidence, dating back more than 5,000 years, shows humans chewing gum-like substances: sap resin, tar, bark, wax, gristle, for various reasons: staving off hunger, freshening breath, working out nervous energy—you name it, apparently they chewed it. So maybe it’s true that gum isn’t digestible and thus stays forever in one’s stomach (otherwise how would they know?)
To paraphrase Cole Porter:
Mayans chewed it, Greeks chewed it, even Neanderthals in skins chewed. They chewed it—Babe Ruth did, too! How’s about yoooouuuuuuu.
When I think of gum—aside from it being stuck—in hair, on sofas, clothing…shoes—and chewing, it’s the jingles. Which lead to this prompt.
Poetry Challenge #159
Chew on This!
Pop a stick of gum into your gob—literally or figuratively—and chew away. There you go: chew, chew, chew. Now, with that repetitive rhythm in mind, write a poem.
The subject of the poem doesn’t have to be chewing gum. It can be, of course. Whichever subject you choose—be it chewing gum or otherwise—focus on the rhythm, that repetitive chewing action. Try to get that repetitive motion and sound into your poem.
If you’d like to chomp off a bigger challenge, see if you can shape your poem into a jingle.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just chew-chew-chew it!
More to chew on:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than SIXTEEN HUNDRED days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #158-Mine for Lines--Foundlings
“Nikki Grimes” saying her name is synonymous with poetry. The way Nikki lives, loves, creates is pure poetry—as are her books! I keep a copy of her WORDS WITH WINGS on my desk-always!
A few years back I was gifted with a week of mornings with Nikki at Kindling Words West. If you’re not familiar with KW it’s a “professional retreat for the children’s book world.” To continue:
Fellow attendee, SCBWI-Houston bud, Force of an Author, Lynne Kelly was there too.
While I soaked up Nikki’s magic, Lynne shared snippets of what Nikki sprinkled us with on her blog: “Making Stuff Up and Writing it Down” including Nikki’s instructions for creating Found Poems which, to non-poet me felt like validating paint-by-number as “art”. It sort of kind of feels like cheating—but also like an easy way in. I can do easy!
Nikki’s magic doesn’t come in a jar!
Poetry Challenge #158
Mine for Lines-Foundlings
Its time to revise. Read through some of your previous poems and “find gems”—favorite lines or phrases or words. Use these foundlings to create a new poem. You might decide to only mine one poem.
Or, maybe even more exciting: stir things up by combining foundlings from several poem to create your new poem. Surprise yourself!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than SIXTEEN HUNDRED days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
Click on Fishbowl link below and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
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Poetry Challenge #157-Cinnamon Raisin Kind of Day
Cinnamon Raisin Bread… Cinnamon Raisin Bread… Cinnamon Raisin Bread…
Can’t you imagine the smell? Cinnamon, sweet with sugar. Yeasty smell of freshly baked bread. Tangy saucy raisins daring to be plucked… Stomach growling?
With it’s swirly cinnamon sugar yummy-ness, who (aside from my friend, Liz) would/could say “no” to a freshly baked slice? Statistically speaking, not many:
“In bakeries across the country, we request cinnamon raisin bread more often than many others.”—I got that on the best authority; the 2020 National Day Calendar.
Poetry Challenge #157
Cinnamon Raisin Kind of Day
In honor of National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day (celebrated every September 16th—for what reason no one knows) write a poem about the smell, taste, anticipation of something you remember in the oven.
Pay attention to the images in your poem that will help the reader picture the time, place, people, and food.
Now: Try breaking your poem between every 2 lines. Play with the last words on the lines like the poet in the following example:
“The Last Swim of Summer
by Faith Shearin
Our pool is still blue but a few leaves
have fallen, floating on the surface
of summer. The other swimmers
went home last week, tossed
their faded bathing suits aside,
so my daughter and I are alone
in the water which has grown colder
like a man’s hand at the end of
a romance. The lifeguard is under
her umbrella but her bags are packed
for college. We are swimming against
change, remembering the endless
shores of June: the light like lemonade,
fireflies inside our cupped hands,
watermelon night. We are swimming
towards the darkness of what
is next, walking away from the sounds
of laughter and splashing, towels
wrapped around the dampness of our loss.”
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
As a reward, treat yourself to a loaf. BTW: Cinnamon Raisin Bread is, oddly fun to watch so here’s a video from allrecipes.com.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than SIXTEEN HUNDRED days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #156-Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a . . . Ferret?
If Theodore Roosevelt hadn’t been a hunter; if he had not refused to shoot the tired old bear guides had trapped to the tree expressly so the 26th President would have had a clear shot; and if cartoonist Clifford Berryman hadn’t immortalized the moment in a that 1902 Washington Post cartoon (and many others), what animal would kiddles cuddle up with an night? A stuffed pig maybe? Or a ferret?
We’ll never know, will we? For, as the story goes that cartoon gave Brooklyn candy store owner, Morris Michtom, a grand idea. Michtom created a new stuffed toy, and after writing to the president asking his permission, named it after him, “Teddy Bear.”
Poetry Challenge #156
Teddy, Oh, Teddy!
In celebration of National Teddy Bear Day, September 9th, write a sonnet in the spirit of Elizabeth Browning’s, “How Do I love Thee,” (Sonnet 43). You might even begin your sonnet the same way Browning began hers:
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. . .
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
And, while we’re on the subject of Teddy’s—they aren’t just for squishing; they’re for reading time, too!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1580ish days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #155-No Rhyme Nor Reason
Today, September 1st is No Rhyme (nor Reason) Day. A day set aside to honor, recognize, pay tribute to “words that do not rhyme with any other words in the English language.” (Why September 1st? no one seems to know.)
Rhymeless words are called refractory rhymes. According to the National Days Calendar, “Poets reason that avoiding these words helps keep their poetry consistent. However, refractory words only interrupt poems where rhyme and reason matter.”
WAH-WAH-WAH! scoff some, fecklessly taking on rhymeless words the way bulls (other than Ferdinand) challenge red sashes by fabricating words ala Lewis Carroll, or using proper names to make the rhyme.
Others get around the pesky rhyme issue by adding a suffix to rhymeless words, such as changing month to month-o, or orange to orangine, orangish, orangey, oranguar, etc. etc. and so forth . . .
Poetry Challenge #155
No Rhyme Nor Reason
Below is a list of rhymeless words, with no reason other than having fun, write a rhyming poem:
Use one or two… or even a few. Long or short, funny or not, we care not a jot—it’s completely up to you!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
More No Rhyme nor Reason Reading:
National No Rhyme (nor Reason) Day: #NoRhymeNorReasonDay
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1580ish days ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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Poetry Challenge #154-That's Puzzling?!
Shirley Ellis was the Queen of rocking song games: The Name Game, The Clapping Game, 3-6-9 Song, and the inspiration for today’s poetry challenge, The Puzzle Song (A Puzzle in Song), 1965. Definitely a tongue twister which posed a lot of questions:
To who do you do the thing to do
When it's time to do it
No matter to who
But there's nobody there to do it but you
And what isn't that has to be done
Is a puzzle in song
Now how do you know
If you know how to do
Whatever it is to be done by you
If there's nobody there to do it to
And what isn't that has to be done
Is a puzzle in song
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Can't compare with trying to figure out the puzzle song
Holding your tongue
And saying molasses on the table isn't as hard
As trying to figure out the puzzle song
Supposing you find the answer to
To who do you do the thing to do
The puzzle is still is a puzzle to you
Is what isn't that has to be done
Is a puzzle in song.—”A Puzzle in Song” lyrics, Shirley Ellis
Poetry Challenge #154
That’s Puzzling?!
In the spirit of The Puzzle Song write a stanza poem that does one of two things:
1. Answers the questions posed by Shirley
2. Poses questions for the reader to ponder.
In The Puzzle Song, sneaky Shirley inserted a refrain that begins with this familiar tongue twister: “Peter Piper picked a pepper.” That refrain seemingly has absolutely nothing to do with the anything, thus making it even more puzzling.
See if you can’t follow suit by breaking up your stanza with a nursery rhyme line refrain—which may or may not make sense.
Have fun puzzling us with your poem!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing
Don’t Think Too Much About it; Just do it!
Take a listen: A Puzzle in Song sung by Shirley!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1570ish prompts ago! (without a miss!!!) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments. And scroll down for my happy news:
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