Poetry Challenge #226-The Think System
How about those New Year Resolutions? Did you make them? Have you kept them so far? Gulp…
According to Discover Happy Habits poll of folks who make New Year’s resolutions:
After 1 week 75% are still successful in keeping it.
After 2 weeks, the number drops to 71%.
After 1 month, the number drops again to 64%.
After 6 months, 46% of people who made a resolution are still successful in keeping it.
Notice, all those statistics are about making and keeping resolution. No one ever says we can’t revise them…
Poetry Challenge #226
The Think System
In The Music Man, Dr. Harold Hill taught the “The Think System” to folks in River City. “Think!” he implored his band students “think” the notes and to imagine themselves playing. The Think System kept Harold out of the Hoosegow. Maybe it can work for us, too.
Poetry Challenge #226
The Think System
Choose one thing you’d like to change in your life. One dream you have for yourself. One hope for the future. It might be that New Year’s Resolution you half-hardheartedly made, or maybe something you haven’t dared put into words.
“Think” of a time, a place, a reality where that change, that dream, that hope is a fait accompli. You are doing it! Living it! Being there!
Write THAT poem. Write a poem based in that new reality! Maybe this clearer image of then will help us refine and keep those resolutions now.
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 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #225 This One's for the Birds
Click off those inside noises, pop your head outside and take a listen. Listen to the birds!
Happy Bird Day! (Jan 5th)* Different species of birds sing very different songs with different sounds and rhythms. Here are some birds and their songs (in human speak):
Chestnut-sided warbler: pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you
Whippoorwill: whip-poor-will
Chickadee: chick-a-dee-dee-dee
Common Yellowthroat: Witchity, witchity, witchity
Red-winged Blackbird: konklaree.
Ovenbird: Teacher, teacher, teacher
American Bittern: bloonk-a-doonk
Barred Owl: Who cooks for you?
Poetry Challenge #225
One For the Birds
Pick a bird from the list above (or find your own) and write a poem using the rhythm of that bird’s song. Your poem can be about a bird, or it could be the bird’s thoughts.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it! Tweet Tweet!
*Established in 2002, National Bird Day, established by Born Free USA with Avian Welfare Coalition, it’s a day to promote avian awareness—and the harsh reality that “nearly 12 percent of the world’s almost 10,000 bird species are in danger of extinction.” So . . . what can we do????
Plant 2/3rd for the Birds! What you grow in the garden can make a difference!” Here’s more at 234birds.org
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #224 Ticking Along
Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock The clock is ticking, running fast. Tick-Tock Tick-Tock…
Yesterday was National Tick Tock Day (Dec. 29th). In a matter of hours this year that has ticked by sooooooo quickly will be over . . .
Have you done everything you need to do before the end of the year? Do it just now…but first:
Poetry Challenge #224
The Clock’s Ticking
Tick Tock.
Tick
Tick Tick
TALK
Write a poem with one or two words on each line. Listen to the rhythm. Listen to the sounds. Does it sound like a wristwatch or a grandfather clock.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
For inspiration, here are 11 songs with Time in the Title. Maybe you can write one of your own!
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack
Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner
Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
I’ve Had the Time of My Life by David Cook
Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce
Love Me Two Times by The Doors
Any Time at All by the Beatles
Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is? by Chicago
Time is on my Side by The Rolling Stones
As Time Goes By sung by Jimmy Durante
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #223-'Tis the Season!
It’s that time of year. It’s December 22nd, and no matter what we celebrate or where we live, we are all racing around trying to do too much all at once and everything else too—all the while trying to keep it real and still make it special. Right? The last thing you have time or energy for is writing a new poem. True? So I won’t ask you to. Promise.
Poetry Challenge #223
Tis the Season
First: Take one minute. One. 60 seconds to sort through some of the poems you’ve already written. Select one that you absolutely do not think works. One that you wrote on your least inspired day. One that, if a whole stack of your poetry blew across the room and out the window, you would race after first just so you could grab it before anyone else had a chance to read it. Yep. That one.
Now: Think of the Season: whether it’s Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, winter in the Northern Hemisphere; summer in the South . . . What does Tis the Season mean to you?
Finally: Using words, images, sounds, and smells of the season, turn your hideous poem into a seasonal sensation! Twist it, change it, rearrange it, rhyme it, line it, redefine it. Sprinkle it with elf dust if you must. Surprise yourself!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
HAPPY CELEBRATING! Wishing you health and joy!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #222-Calling All Cat Herders!
Boots? Check! Hat? Check! Lasso? Check! Yeehaw! Y’all get ready for today, Dec 15, is officially National Cat Herders Day!
Thomas and Ruth Roy from Wellcat.com, herb growers and quirky holiday creators, invented Cat Herders Day to honor not cats, or cat herders (well maybe cat herder’s too.) but mostly people who’s jobs are challenging, chaotic, crA-ZZZ-y! Now it’s a thing.
Poetry Challenge #222
Calling All Cat Herders!
If you’ve ever tried to get a cat to do what you want it to do, you know that’s close to impossible. Now imagine a whole group of cats. Listed below are a bunch of cat types. Herd as many as you can into a poem—extra credit if the poem is NOT about cats.
Persian, Main Coon, Bengal, British Shorthair, Siamese, Sphinx, Ragdoll, Munchkin, Scottish Fold, Norwegian Forest, Savannah, Siberian, Polydactyl, Snowshoe, Calico
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
And while we’re on the subject…
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #221-Buckle Up Sherman!
Let’s pretend! Just for today—because, after all, it is December 8th, National Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. Begun by GEEK USA, participants must “spend the entire day in costume in character. The only rule is that you can not actually tell anyone that you are a time traveler.”
Poetry Challenge #221
Buckle Up Sherman!
Pretend that Doc Brown’s DeLorean or Mr. Peabody’s Time Travel Machine really works, and you can go back-back-back in time as far as you’d like, to any place you’d like. Or, if you’d rather, you can zoom-zoom forward into the future. Where would you go? To when? Why? What would you be wearing? How would you speak?
Write a poem about your travels, but, building on GEEK USA rules, do not tell us exactly where you go and when. Instead, use evocative description & dialogue to show us.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
“Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!”….whoops, wrong show. . . “Ready, Marty?”
For inspiration, here are a few time Time Traveler books, something for everyone:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #220-Red Apple Day
No one seems to know how it came about, or why, but today, Dec 1st, 2021, is National Eat a Red Apple Day. Here’s what I do know:
Red vs. Green? Yellow wins! In spite of the prescribed “Apple a day…” apples are only the 2nd most consumed fruit in the U.S. Banana are #1.
Here’s something else: A poem doesn’t taste like an apple, but it can look like an apple, and it can be about an apple, or have apples in it, but it doesn’t have to.
Poetry Challenge #220
Wall and Red Apples
“Something there is that does not love a wall…”
Robert Frost wrote in the poem “Mending Walls”, published in 1914.
What if we changed that line to “Something there is that does not love a red apple”? Use that as the first line of your poem and see where it takes you.
Write a second verse replacing “red apple” with something else.
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 2000+ 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 . . .
Poetry Challenge #219 Two Scoops of Gratitude!
Gobble Gobble Gobble! That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow. Maybe you, too? Or maybe you’ve already enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast and will be going in for seconds…or thirds. Regardless of what you’ll eat, where you’ll go, what you’ll do, or whether you’ll celebrate alone or with other, let’s take a moment to reflect on reasons we have to give thanks. (For if you are reading this, then like me, you do have reasons.)
Spotted this rafter of turkeys strutting around our backyard last week. When I said our local B-Ball team “The Gobblers” was warming up, a friend wrote “you mean ‘pre-heating’!” Gobble-gobble!
Poetry Challenge #219
Two Scoops of Thanks
Write a poem of thanks. For? or To whom? is up to you.
The poem must be at least twelve words long—one word beginning with each letter of the word T-H-A-N-K-S-G-I-V-I-N-G.
Yes, it can be longer.
Yes, you can include words that begin with other letters, too.
Yes it can rhyme. . . No it doesn’t have to.
When you’ve finished, take a moment to polish your poem so you can share it—perhaps later, with pie!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Happy Thanksgiving! I am grateful for your support!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ 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 . . .