It’s Post Your Poems Day!
Cardboard maze by JackVinson on Flickr
When I was in preschool, we had a party each spring in the playground of the school with face-painting, games, crafts, and hay rides, as well as my favorite activity–the cardboard maze. For weeks before the party, a group of parents would volunteer their time to construct a giant maze out of cardboard boxes. Although I didn’t end up writing about cardboard mazes, working with the “boxes” prompt this week brought back some great memories of them!
Did you play with boxes this week? Find something hidden away in a box that you had forgotten about? Explore the meaning of an empty box? Perhaps you let out your inner child and turned a refrigerator box into a castle or a spaceship. Or maybe while free-writing about boxes, some other idea jumped out at you that you just had to write about. Whatever you wrote about this week, now is the time to share it with the world! Leave a comment on this post with a link to your poem on your own blog, or if you don’t have a blog, you can leave your entire poem in the comments.
Once you leave your own comment, be sure to visit everyone else’s links. After all, we’re a community, and one of the best ways a community of writers can support its members is to read and comment on one another’s work. As we read each other’s poems, let’s remember why we created this community. We are a group of poets who seek inspiration, challenges, and a social community of other poets. If you comment on another poet’s work, please do so thoughtfully and positively – we are not a critique group!
Trackbacks
- We Write Poems: boxes (notes) « carolee sherwood
- The Kyrielle Builds My Story
- fuel for the game « Jason's Chatter
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We Write Poems 
Boxes
I think both of these are excellent! Did you come from the military?
Posted a comment on your blog, but this is for everyone. I want to acknowledge Rob’s work here on this site. HUZZAH!
I wrote two to prompt this week. The first is titled: “PARABLE.”
Some of you have already seen it because I combined prompts from WWP and Big Tent Poetry linked to it over there too. So I also wrote one that hasn’t been linked to anywhere until today. It too is a result of combined prompts, this time WWP and Poetry on Wednesday.
It is titled: “DITTO.”
Having trouble posting on your blog. Both poems were excellent. You are a teller pf stories Both could be developed into something more. Well done
Melanie
Great images!
Here’s my poem for WWP’s first ever ever prompt. Mallery, love your post.
moving boxes
mine is #439 —
http://triflings.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/439/
I’ll be around to visit after school today, hopefully!!
😀
The prompt took me straight to a this poem:
http://word-painting.blogspot.com/2010/05/ubiquitous-box.html
Loved hearing about your cardboard maze! Here’s my poem.
http://herwordsbloomed.blogspot.com/2010/05/we-write-poems-prompt-1-boxes.html
My exploration brought me to a little silver box that used to belong to my great grandmother, Ida Kiiskinen. It houses some of my charms, now.
http://bozone-bw.blogspot.com/2010/05/charmed-life.html
Love the cardboard box maze, and your post. Thank you Mallery for being here!!
It’s off to work…I anticipate an excellent evening’s reading!
Candid, lovely. The umbilical cord sounds like something I’d keep…! Many of us have keepsake boxes, but your memories gathered here, the eloquence of your phrasing, makes this stand out. (Tried to post to your blog; unsuccessful.) Amy
Wonderful idea Mallery, about your cardboard maze! Gives a whole new meaning to that old stone, “cardboard jungle” too.
And my poem, Dragon’s tale
Nice dragon, nice, please be good…
I enjoyed this prompt very much. It brought back a childhood memory. I look forward to getting to know all of you at WWP. Here is my poem “Boxes” written this week.
http://inthecornerofmyeye.blogspot.com/2010/05/boxes.html
Love the ‘roll free’ concept!
Left a comment on your blog, but we all agree, great memories were conjured from your poem, Mary!
Great job on your poems, everyone! I’m working my way through reading them all. Here’s mine: Box in the laundry closet
I’m not able to post anything here. Help?
Marie,
Can you tell me what in particular happens when you try to post a comment? Then I can try to help.
-Mallery
Perhaps you need to sign up on the day the prompt is posted, then it will accept your ID when you come back later? I’m new here myself, but as a techie/geek, that’s my best theory. Anyone else?
Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
“Vessels for lifestyles…” Wonderful phrase, Mallery. And it’s funny, I never thought about how many people had tried on the shoes before me – except at the bowling alley!!
HAPPY FIRST PROMPT DAY!
mine has the really original title: boxes
I went somewhere really interesting with the prompt….
Detonate
Yes, you did! Thanks Nicole.
Gee, I thought I had posted my poem.
Here it is:
my poem
This is a little different.
http://troublebeingstrong.blogspot.com/2010/05/over-but-not-done.html
This prompt made me think of a couple of boxes hanging around…
I just changed my public name from diladi to Diane Truswell. Was a little confused as this is my first post.
“JourneyWithinABox”:http://heartspell.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/journey-within-a-box/
Here is my post. Thanks for the fun.Heartspell
I wrote (pretty freely) about a box of misfitting clothes:
Checking my box of almost never
Thanks for the prompt Mallery.
http://flaubert-poetrywithme.blogspot.com/2010/05/your-box-we-write-poems-prompt-1-boxes.html
I’m popping in to say Hi to all my old RWP peeps and to new ones I hope to meet here! I’m hoping to become a more active participant soon. Meanwhile, I do have a new poem up on my blog, if you care to visit. Warning: it’s on the sad side but reflects what’s happening in my corner of the world – a sad state of affairs that is on everyone’s minds on the Gulf Coast these days.
I’m going to visit y’all’s posts in hopes of finding happier words!
You are so so welcome back and here Zouxzoux! Thank you for saying hello!!
My friend Mary suggested coming to your new site and I have enjoyed it so far. I am uncertain how to put the box poems up here. Let me know please if we are not to put them here in comments!
Box Head
Boxes and
their walls come
in all sizes
and every hue.
They are
only as real
as the boxes
in your
head.
We should think out of the box right? Box Head made me think of Spongebob.
My Valentines
Rough and sturdy, this box was made
For men’s workshoes , It would never
Recognize itself wrapped with borders
Of lace and crepe paper ruffles, embellished
All over with bright red “I love you” hearts.
It sits in its splendor on the teacher’s desk
As third graders slide their messages through
The slit cut in its center. Some arrived early
That day, sat and watched as their class-
Mates tried to act cool as they placed their
Small white envelopes in the slot all at
Once, not wanting to give away how many
They had prepared.
The teacher, as teachers are taught to do, tried
To be fair, suggesting in her note to the parents
That each child receive a valentine and listed
All the names in her class to make sure.
But we knew who we were, the outsiders on
The fringe of the “in” crowd and taking the
Advice of someone’s older sister, had come
Prepared. The handfuls of valentines we
Slipped in the box were carefully addressed
To ourselves.
http://mypoeticlicense.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-dark-of-a-box/
Had no idea how much boxes have affected me – great prompt!
I will try to post the poem here instead of the link because I am unable to post anything but replies to comments for some reason:
64 Colors
aquamarine sky
raw umber bear
spring green bubble trees
we jealously guarded
the orange boxes packed with
slim harlequin soldiers
arranging their glossy pointed heads
by tone or hue or favor
apricot, periwinkle, copper, midnight blue
risking sour regret
if our fingers pressed too hard
breaking one in two
its middle sagging
miserably held together
by only its grey paper uniform
a wounded trooper no
longer tall and erect
ruining the lot
years later we peeled them
like Easter eggs
crumbled them into a warm Maxwell House can
poured the slick liquid into
amorphous holes dug in the ground
lined with yellow sand
forming gritty tie-dyed
candles we hoped to burn
in dorm rooms someday
while watching
childhood and adolescence
recede with the silver smoke
Click on my name if you want to leave comments on my blog. Thanks for letting me participate!
Poem is deceptively titled, An Audit
This is still a draft…an angry draft…called “Greetings from Arizona”
http://rrosenchang.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
congrats, WWP on your first prompt and invitation to post poems! i found really helpful items — love manuals and maps — in the glove box of my car! going to make my way around to read tonight after dinner and an open mic!
Appreciate your visit here and thanks Carolee!
Good one (and no surprise!).
(correcting link problems in earlier comment)
Here is my post. Thanks for the fun.Heartspell
Journey Within A Box
Here’s mine: 64 Colors
Hi Marie! Glad you’re here. And you got your poem posted above I see as text in a comment, so that’s good.
I look at your actual code for the link in comment here and see the problem. I’ll send you an email with code that should work properly to do what you want. Big thanks for hanging in! That’s the spirit of poetry!! 🙂 ~Neil
Thank you, Neil! It looks as though I got it halfway there.
I wrote another box poem related to my first box poem which I posted earlier. I have them both on my blog site and hope this link will take you there. Feel free to leave a comment!
http://ponderingspeggy.blogspot.com/
I just have to say that this is such a strong and true poem (not mine – but one of Diane who posted earlier) that I hope others will identify…as I did
http://troublebeingstrong.blogspot.com/2010/05/over-but-not-done.html
Oh! Oh! A shipping container is a box! And really the coffee processing I have in mind uses grate boxes… So I have boxes! I didn’t even realize it when I submitted something to the 48hr magazine folks this week (waited for the rejection before posting). I boxed myself in but ended up being even more open. Neat.
http://jasonriedy.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/fuel-for-the-game/
Thanks for the prompt! Ended up with a kyrielle at http://lindagoin.com/2010/the-kyrielle-builds-my-story.html
Mine is called “Found Empty”
http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/jjspoetry/2010/05/found-empty.html
Congratulations!!
I *wanted* to write to this week’s prompt, but couldn’t this week. I will be back, around, a visitor, etc!!
Enjoy your party, poets!
Hi Deb, Thanks for dropping by. *squeal* It’s nice to see all the familiar faces. It makes us feel less insecure. Hey we’re human. We have insecurities.
(Thinking out loud, maybe a free prompt day so those who could not write to a prompt can also share. I think a poem written is not complete till it’s a poem read. The reader is “the active participant without whom the poem is never finished,” quoting Adrienne Rich.) And I ramble.
I appreciate your visit Deb! Thanks.
Here is my poem about boxes
http://stacylynnmar.blogspot.com/2010/05/monday-may-5th-poetry-prompt.html
I will be back later tonight to read everyone’s poem. 🙂
I’m a day late, but I do have a box poem just posted on my poetry blog, http://victoria-andnowpoems.blogspot.com/. I like your prompts and hope to be more timely next week.
Hi Victoria. Can’t get my comment through on your blog, so…
A beautifully expressed sentiment, heard here through both your voice and with the images of moments valued by your father now gone. It is sentimental in the best sense of the word, and being so personal, intimate, it draws us inside. And what history of a life shared in such breadth with so few words, just by what was in a box, and grows by all that’s implied. Very nice writing, evocative, yet the touch is also light.
And please no worry about being “late”. We have no clock like that. Only reason really for keeping close to the date is that more people are likely to see your post, then have the chance to read and appreciate what you’ve shared with us.
Thanks for sharing and welcome! ~Neil
Thanks you Neil for your kind and welcoming response to my boxed poem. I intend to spend some time this weekend reading more of the poems posted here – seems like a good place for me to be.
http://crankymango.blogspot.com/2010/05/last-dance.html
My poem “Speaking of Boxes” is at http://sadlywaiting.blogspot.com/2010/05/speaking-of-boxes.html