Welcome to the first of a series of fortnightly writing prompts that I hope will inspire you to write poems.
I will select up to ten submissions for the website from each prompt, however there won’t be any voting this time. Instead if you have enjoyed the poems and want to send in feedback for the poets this is welcome.
Workshop One
For this first prompt I want to take you back to a very early memory. I suggest sitting somewhere quietly and thinking about yourself at different ages. Maybe your first day at school? Or perhaps first day at nursery? Maybe your first memory is of a little brother or sister in your life. How did that feel? Can you remember particular sensations?
The memory may be unpleasant, you may remember being hurt. or you may recall hurting someone or something else.
What was the place you lived in like? Some concrete detail will bring your poem to life.
Here is my own poem on this theme.
Creation Story
In the beginning
there was the cool touch
of a flagstone floor.
Baby soft feet.
And then a big brown bowl
and a swallowing up.
A lap’s crazy heat.
Soft petals. Wet cheek.
Mum dead heading roses.
Susan Jane Sims
This appeared in Obsessed with Pipework magazine in 2010 and later the same year I published it in my pamphlet collection Irene’s daughter.
The event was falling over a bowl in the kitchen of the old rented cottage in which we lived. In the poem I have chosen to concentrate on the sensations; soft petals, wet cheek, in order to paint a vivid picture economically.
Take a look too at My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke.
Deadline for sending in poems is Saturday 5th November when I will be posting workshop two.
