Tag: poetry prompts

Mary’s Flour

Time for reactions to prompt number two. Remember, you can still join in and send me something, we have 28 more prompts to feature 🙂

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Here’s a lovely response from Julie Easley:

They dissed Mary’s flour
said it tainted the fancies
but Mary didn’t care
for their sour responses
She flavoured her flour
with the decadent essence
of feminist spice mixed
with a pinch of opportunity.
Some choked on the power
of Mary’s floury produce
their taste buds unable
to swallow and savour
the equalising strength
of her sweet sisterly ingredients.
Plus a small, fierce statement from Lisette Auton, nut allergy sufferer

Mary’s flour does not say categorically whether it is made with gluten nor if it contains nuts.

Mary needs to work on her labelling.

 

And here’s a tiny little poem from me!
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Pleas be sure to go and see the photograph by Brigida Baltar currently on exhibit from the Middlesbrough Collection at MIMA, until the end of March.

Air From Other Planets

Just over a week ago I published a list of bizarre creative writing prompts that arose from some experiments made as part of my writing residency at MIMA. I asked people if they’d like to send me their poems and flash in response. To my delight, several brave souls have done!

So, here is the first of 30 posts where I will share my response to the prompt (in Instagram slides), and also a bunch of stuff by other people. Here’s the first prompt:

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I was reading ‘Changing Planes’ by Ursula le Guin when I started working on this, so I was influenced by her format of multiple very short stories all presented as travel guides to other planets/dimensions. My short writings came out as advertising blurbs.

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Here’s another approach from Lisette Auton…

Is mars air coloured red?

Will it glaze my lungs in flames?

One way to find out…

And here’s another two pieces from me! If you’d like to have your flash, poem or micro-poem included in the next blogs, take a look at the prompts and email me something to imeldasays at gmail dot com. Cheers!

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And I almost forgot to add this fun piece from Rob Walton!

I was pure shocked to read in the paper about the big mountain of bloated bird corpses in Kent.
I said to Ken, I said, I said,
“Can it, can it, can it really be that there’s a mountain of dead gannets
grossly rotting on a beach on the Isle of Thanet?”
“Aye, well, you know what it is,” said Kenneth.
“They’d had enough of the poor air quality down there, so one of them – I think it was Little Jeffrey – went online and bought air from other planets. Turns out it was a bad batch. Cut with something or other.”
“Oh, that’s, I mean, that’s terrible. That’s such a shame. A crying shame.”
“Aye,” said Kenny. “Mind, they’re only gannets.”

Deseeded

I’m very happy indeed to have a poem selected for Deseeded, an online magazine edited by Degna Stone, founder member of the Butcher’s Dog editing team. The call-out asked for work written in response to a prompt from the late Julia Darling, published as a Guardian masterclass in 2005, shortly before her death. It was a lovely prompt, all about instructional poems, which are some of the most fun things to write because they really do ‘tell the truth but tell it slant.’

The overall selection is beautifully curated, and not over-long, so I urge you to just gorge yourself on the whole lot right now.

If you’d like to try writing an instructional poem yourself, here is the prompt , and if you are in the Newcastle area you could go to Live Theatre for workshops and new plays all responding to, and celebrating, the life and work of Julia Darling.

I also strongly recommend you subscribe to the amazing Butcher’s Dog magazine, which will come to you in hard copy twice a year and fill your life with beauty.