Thursday Prompt #9: Line by Line

For our ninth poetry prompt, Stacy Lynn Mar offers her personal solution for writer’s block. This is an exciting prompt, as it’s very structured yet each of us will certainly turn out a very different piece of work. If you are daring, try using this prompt on several different days throughout the week, without referring back to the previous pieces you wrote using the prompt. Then compare the resulting pieces to see how similar or different they are!

Stacy’s prompt:

“Often there are days when I want to write, yet when I put pen to paper, I draw only a bank.  When this happens you can forget a particular structure, much less legible subject matter.  Hence, my “Line by Line” poetry prompt was born.

My initial idea was to create a poem which delved into many subjects and topics, all the while staying on the same page.  I was looking for a great reserve of creativity, some off-the-wall references, and a lot of interesting tidbits to make one awseomely perfunctory piece of work.  Now, when there are no available prompts (or when a prompt just isn’t doing it for me) I grab my “Line by Line” rules and am well on my way.

I hope you will find this prompt as much fun as I do!  There are fourteen parts (sort of fill-in-the blanks).   I usually  require myself to write one line per question (except for the questions that ask that you write more than one line), which results in an eighteen line poem at minimum.  Sometimes I go for more.   To prevent my poem from being just a body of random statements, I try to tie them into one general idea.  For example, perhaps you are recalling a memory, or telling a story.  If you find yourself wanting to skip one or two, that’s fine too. Writing should be a release from real life.  Just let loose and have a great time!

1. A feeling
2. Observe the scenery of your immediate surroundings
3. Personification of an inanimate object
4. Use a metaphor
5. Spend four lines recalling a prominent memory
6. Use symbolism in a statement
7. Associate some form of weather to the feeling in #1
8. Tell a lie, about anything
9. Make a reference to a holiday or season
10. State a fact about a favorite artist or poet
11. Compare yourself to a specific piece from the artist/poet you used in #10
12. Negate the lie you told in #8, or further support or restate it
13. Describe a daydream or parts of a dream you’ve had
14. For the last two lines, refer to a vacationing location