7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #210-Engines Off!

Hide those car keys! Engines Off! Today is World Car Free Day.

Ever wonder why cars are also called “autos”? I’m thinking it’s to bless or blame one guy, Nicolaus Otto, who in 1876 “invented an effective gas motor engine.” Daimler and Benz may have built cars before him, but Otto’s 4-stroke internal combustion engine called the “Otto Cycle Engine” is what made the wheels go around…and around and around and around…

January 29, 1886 Benz was granted the first automobile patent.

January 29, 1886 Benz was granted the first automobile patent.

…Which seemed to make everyone, especially the oil & gas industry, very happy. Until sometime in the 50s, when some folks poked their heads out of the exhaust fumes and realized that cars were changing our cities, neighborhoods, lives. According to the National Day Calendar website, “from 1956 to 1957, the Netherlands and Belgium held car-free Sundays.”  On September 22, 2000, the European Car Free Day was held. It has since been an annual event for 46 countries and 2,000 cities all over the world—and now, here!

Poetry Challenge #210

Engines Off!

Take a moment to silence those noisy engines—if only in your mind—and imagine a day without cars. Any cars on the road, or buses, motorcycles, lawnmowers, too. What would you do? What sounds could you hear that you don’t usually? Where might you go and how would you get there?

If you can agree that the world—for this one car-free day—would be a quieter and probably slower place, challenge yourself to use quieter and slower sounding words.

“Quieter” words are those without hard-sounding endings: the hard K,G,T consonants.

“Slower words often have repeated vowel sounds and repeated soft consonants: double s, double m or n sounds.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

walk-school.jpg

Awwway weeeeee goooooooo!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #209-Earth First

Think: Green

Think: Peace

Today, because it’s National Green Peace Day. But not just today. Think Earth First because it’s time. It’s long past time!

We can change and make changes to help our world.

We can change and make changes to help our world.

AND because, if we consciously think “Earth” before we do whatever it is we have to do: before we go; before we toss; before we buy; before. . . before we ignore, we can change and make changes to help our world.

Poetry Challenge #209

Green Peace

There’s nothing quite like the color green, and everyone wants peace. For this poem, Today, think of as many words that can rhyme with green or peace and use them in a poem.

For an extra challenge, do not let the last words in lines rhyme.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

Think Green Peace

green peace.jpg

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #208-Amp It Up!

The instant I learned there was such a thing as National Ampersand Day, Joni Mitchell’s song “Twisted” popped into my head:

& he thought I was nuts/No more ifs or & or buts, oh no!/They say as a child I appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas/but I knew what was a jean-yuus . . .

But then I thought, why not? After all doesn’t it seem right & fitting to set aside time to celebrate a symbol that dates back more than 2,000 years; & was once the last letter of the English alphabet (before Z took its place);& stands for the latin word et, “and” in English as in the word etcetera; &is derived from an alteration of “and per se and,” meaning  (i.e. ‘&’); & is arguably the most used lologram* in the English language? & so, without further ado:

Poetry Challenge #208

AMP IT UP

Let’s use these “how to celebrate ampersand day” suggestions to revise a poem.

#1 Select a poem to revise

Now: AMPersand IT UP…rather in the spirit of the day…& IT UP!

#2 Substitute an ampersand “& “ for every “and” in the poem.

#3 Throughout the poem, replace the “and” sound with an ampersand. For example: change Andrea to &rea; Alexander to Alex&er, Grandma to Gr&ma; etc. & so forth.

#4 If your poem doesn’t have enough ampersands to make it interesting—or &y at all—change & add words until it looks more interesting.

#5 If you dare, send your revised poem to a friend for decoding.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it! & Have Fun!

*A logogram is a character that represents a word or phrase commonly used in shorthand. Other lolograms include  @, #, $, %… & numbers such as 4 . . . LOL (yep LOL is a lologram too, lol!)

Ampersand List.JPG

& BTW: Amersand Day was declared “in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone, an author, designer, typographer & founder of  AmperArt an initiative which considers the ampersand to be an art form.”

Ampersand-Day-September-8.png


Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #207-Who Gives a Cluck?

Back when Buz and Tod were getting their kicks cruising Route 66, if their tummies growled all they had to do was look up in the sky, not at a bird or a plane, but west to the 22-foot-high Chicken Boy!

For more than 20 years, 1960-1984, Chicken Boy, a huge fiberglass statue a burly mannish “boy” with a chicken head clutching a bucket of fried chicken, “affectionately known as ‘the Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles’”, perched atop LA’s Chicken Boy restaurant. The restaurant closed after the owner died but Chicken Boy lived on—although buried deep in storage until 2007 when thanks to fundraising effort he was resurrected and re-erected in front of owner Amy Inouye’s design firm in Highland Park, CA.

Wondering if cruising to LA to see the Chicken Boy is still a thing? Bet your tail feathers it is! In 2010, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger awarded it the Governor's Historic Preservation Award.

And today, September 1st, National Chicken Boy Day, commemorates that day. Who gives a cluck? We do!

Poetry Challenge #207

What the Cluck!?

Write a Chicken Boy poem. Whether it features that 22-foot-high statue, or a boy and a chicken, or the Chicken Boys band (out of Austin, of course.)

Bwalk-blwak-blawk, just as chickens don’t all look the same—

There are hundreds of different breeds of chicken distinguished by: size, plumage color, comb type, skin color, number of toes, amount of feathering, egg color, and place of origin.[1]. . . also roughly divided by primary use, whether for eggs, meat, or ornamental purposes, and with some considered to be dual-purpose.[1]

—Chickens don’t all talk the same talk. But,  no matter how its written: bwalk, cluck, peekok-peekok or some other spelling from far far away, when it comes to chicken verbalization the one universal is that hard K sound at the end.

Sooooooooo…(or should I say “sawk”). . . Think “Hard K” as you craft your poem.

And then, after you have a draft, go back over through your poem and change words, change sounds, invent words with the sole purpose of making your Chicken Boy poem sound as clucky as possible. 

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

And for inspiration a Chicken Boy Playlist:

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #206-AS If We Need A Excuse to Split

It’s Banana Split Day! Think of that chocolate ice cream drenched in chocolate syrup, the vanilla covered with crushed pineapple, and strawberry ice cream drowning in strawberry sauce. Imagine a perfect banana, split lengthwise down the middle. Picture the swirly mounds of whipped cream on each scoop, each with a maraschino cherry cushioned on top, their candied stems like smiles. Add a sprinkling of nuts and…Yum!!!

Anyone who’s called Banana Splits addictive might be onto something. Pharmacist David Strickler ,a.k.a. Doc Strickler, the “king of the banana split” a soda jerk at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe, PA, concocted the first split in 1904.

Anyone who’s called Banana Splits addictive might be onto something. Pharmacist David Strickler ,a.k.a. Doc Strickler, the “king of the banana split” a soda jerk at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe, PA, concocted the first split in 1904.

Poetry Challenge #206

Make Mine a Banana Split

What ingredients do you like best on your Banana Split?

Pick two or three of your ingredients and SPLIT them into syllables. (For example banana in syllables would be ba-na-na.)

Write a line that rhymes with each of the syllables.

Between the lines, repeat the syllable as many times as you want. Make it sound as good as it tastes.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #205-Well, Since You Asked . . .

Before online ads, Insta-influencers & mail slot clogging catalogues there were Montgomery Ward, Sears, and the diamond of them all, Neiman Marcus. Long before this pandemic folks ordered everything from catalogues—and I’m not just talking undies—I mean ev-re-thing from houses to boats, gold-plated toilets and jets. Sears Home Kits were huge sellers! From 1908-1940 Sears sold about 70,000 kit homes in 48 states. They came assembly ready in 447 different design, everything included—lumber, windows, nails & plans. Unless you’re in Hawaii or Alaska, some no doubt line the streets where you live.

Sears Craftsman homes.JPG

Best or worst “Monkey Ward”, as we called it, was first. “The very first Montgomery Ward Catalog [launched on this day, August 18th, 1872], consisted of an 8 by 12-inch single sheet of paper. On it, Ward included the merchandise for sale, price list, and ordering instructions. Before long, the Montgomery Wards single-page list of products grew into a 540 page illustrated book selling over 20,000 items.”

1961-montgomery-ward-christmas-catalog-iii.jpg

Poetry Challenge #205

Well, Since You Asked . . .

In honor of National Mail-Order Catalogue Day, let’s do as they/we did back in the day, and kids (of all ages) then and now can spend hours doing. Pull out a mail order catalogue, alas, as Montgomery Ward went out of business in 2001 so it can’t be that one, but any other catalogue, whether it sells plants, furnishings, tools, beauty products, or in a pinch a grocery store flyer will do.

Imagine you’ve just entered a contest and the GRAND PRIZE is a shopping spree in the catalogue of your choice. The sky’s the limit as to which or how many items you can choose. There’s only one way to win. Yep, here’s where the poetry comes in:

Write a poem about which items you chose and why you chose them. Maybe a list poem, an epistolary poem ie Dear Aaron Ward . . . or some other form. Warning: All items listed must be accompanied by at least one modifier*. (Any item without a modifier will be disqualified.) 

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

*What’s a modifier? “A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that describes something or makes its meaning more specific.”-thank you grammar-monster.com.

And, for your cruising-the-neighborhood pleasure: How To Identify a Sears Kit Home.

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #204-Joke's on You Mr. President

Presidents are people too, and they have funny stories, facts, and quirks just like other people you might know. Listed below are a few websites with…interesting…facts/stories about the presidents.

Scene from President Taft is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett & Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press)

Scene from President Taft is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett & Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press)

Poetry Challenge #204

The Joke’s on You Mr. President

When you’re finished yukking it up, let’s Take 7 to commemorate National Presidential Joke Day (Aug 11th). Choose one Presidential fact or story and write a poem about it. Write your poem in couplets (two lines that rhyme) with lines of the same length.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

For fun, memorize your poem and recite it at dinner!

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More
7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett 7-Minute Poetry Challenge Kelly Bennett

Poetry Challenge #203-Semper Paratus

Today, August 4, 2021, National Coast Guard Day, marks the 232nd birthday of the Coast Guard, the first national branch of the US Military, established by President George Washington in 1790. The Coast Guard provides sea search and rescue, protect our shores and waterways—including saving an estimated 24,000 people at sea. In Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard rescued about 33,500 people.  

And…remember the movie The Perfect Storm, book by Sebastian Junger? Dah duh-da-duh da-duh!  Coast Guard to the rescue (along with, I’m proud to report, Sea-Air Rescue SAR team from Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach, NY.) Semper Paratus!

Poetry Challenge #203

Semper Paratus

Semper Paratus, the Coast Guard official motto means “Always Ready.” Let that be the title of today’s poem, “Always Ready.”

But for what? And how?—no need to limit your imagination—and, who’s always ready? Is it you . . .or?

But-but-but…before you begin, regardless of the subject of your poem, let’s add a splash of Coast Guard spirit by including words from “Sea Legs, the Coast Guard Glossary” and more:

Coast Guard words 2.JPG

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing!

Don’t Think About it, just do it!

Ahoy mates! What’s a celebration without a rousing rendition of the Coast Guard Anthem? & a Coast Guard movie?! Semper Paratus!

Coast guard boat.jpg

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.

Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL

All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .

Read More