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Animate: Flying Machine Poetry Prompt

By Heather Eure 17 Comments

flying machine poetry promptAnimate is a poetry prompt that focuses on speaking as if we are a particular object. This time, we’re speaking as a flying machine.

Prompt Guidelines and Options

1. Speak in the first person.

2. Be specific. Think nouns instead of adjectives.

3. Consider where you—a flying machine—are located, or where you came from, or where you are going. Or, speak as if you have a special desire or concern: maybe you are hungry, missing something, afraid of a sight or sound, in love with another flying machine that is like you or not like you (maybe a MiG-35 fighter jet, or even a UFO!). Be creative. Any type of situation is fair game.

4. Consider doing a little research about the object you will speak as: its history, associated words, music, art, sculpture, architecture, fashion, science, and so on. Look for unusual details, so you can speak convincingly and intriguingly about yourself.

That’s it! We look forward to hearing you speak poetically, from the viewpoint of an object— a flying machine.

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Featured Poem

Inspired by the drawings of DaVinci and every day flight, here is a recent poem from Megan:

Airplane

we board the flying machine, the birds
behind us back home the codex
won’t fit in our four
sanctioned suitcases sketches behind us
we make mechanical wings
power our own ornithopter

—by Megan Willome

Photo by Bill Abbott. Creative Commons via Flickr.

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How to Write a Poem 283 high How to Write a Poem uses images like the buzz, the switch, the wave—from the Billy Collins poem “Introduction to Poetry”—to guide writers into new ways of writing poems. Excellent teaching tool. Anthology and prompts included.

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  • Author
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Heather Eure
Heather Eure
Heather Eure has served as the Poetry Editor for the late Burnside Collective and Special Projects Editor for us at Tweetspeak Poetry. Her poems have appeared at Every Day Poems. Her wit has appeared just about everywhere she's ever showed up, and if you're lucky you were there to hear it.
Heather Eure
Latest posts by Heather Eure (see all)
  • Poetry Prompt: Misunderstood Lion - March 19, 2018
  • Animate: Lions & Lambs Poetry Prompt - March 12, 2018
  • Poetry Prompt: Behind the Velvet Rope - February 26, 2018

Filed Under: Animate, Blog, Flying Machines, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, writer's group resources, writing prompt

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Comments

  1. Megan Willome says

    August 21, 2017 at 10:15 am

    Thank you, Heather!

    I’m gonna have to give this prompt some thought, but I like it.

    Reply
  2. Rick Maxson says

    August 21, 2017 at 11:03 am

    Megan, what an amazing poem to use codex and ornithopter so naturally. I love it!

    Reply
  3. Rick Maxson says

    August 21, 2017 at 11:05 am

    Heather, you keep coming up with these challenging and fun prompts. I want to try this one. I dream about flying all the time, but not as a machine, which would be so much easier on my arms.

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 23, 2017 at 3:50 am

      Thanks, Rick. Keep on dreaming. I’ll be cheering you on.

      Reply
  4. Rick Maxson says

    August 22, 2017 at 10:06 am

    Only

    in dreams the earth
    falls below me

    I am invisible in blue
    made of sensation

    constructs of air
    motion moist aloft

    like rain rising on wings
    on the warmth of starlight

    and for hours feral and free
    from the one who sleeps

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 23, 2017 at 3:52 am

      “feral and free”
      That sums up the reason behind the pursuit of flight perfectly.
      Loved it.

      Reply
  5. JoyAnne O'Donnell says

    August 22, 2017 at 10:50 am

    Airplane

    Flying is a joy
    reaching to the clouds
    seeing our Lord in them
    protecting our happiness
    the airplane awaits destiny
    a place we see and want to be.

    by, JoyAnne O’Donnell

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 23, 2017 at 3:56 am

      Thank you so much for sharing your poem, JoyAnne. A desire to be closer to the Creator is a perfectly good reason to fly.

      Reply
  6. Monica Sharman says

    August 22, 2017 at 12:48 pm

    Thoughts from an 1890s Glider

    If Lilienthal had wings like a dove
    he would have flown up.
    But with cotton twill stretched
    over my skeleton—split willow branches
    spread like spider-web fingers—
    Otto had to build a hill and soar
    down. We turned when I felt him shift
    side to side, fore and aft. I cradled
    his hips in my harness, his legs
    swinging, shifting his center.
    Gliding, we inspired
    Wright flight.

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 23, 2017 at 3:58 am

      This is great, Monica. The perspective of one of those wonky predecessors. So clever!

      Reply
  7. JoyAnne O'Donnell says

    August 22, 2017 at 12:59 pm

    Flying

    You can soar
    with your thoughts
    in a cartoon
    with friends
    on an adventure
    inside every child’s imagination
    even a birds migration.

    by, JoyAnne O’Donnell

    Reply
    • Heather Eure says

      August 23, 2017 at 4:02 am

      You’re right, JoyAnne. A child’s imagination is wrapped in possibility.

      Reply
    • Christina Hubbard says

      August 25, 2017 at 10:21 am

      I love the image of soaring in a cartoon. When I was a kid, I wanted to live in cartoons. They seemed like an alternate reality where anything could happen. Your poem really taps into the childlike sense of adventure.

      Reply
  8. Christina Hubbard says

    August 25, 2017 at 10:21 am

    Here’s my attempt: http://creativeandfree.com/animate/

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 23 August 2017 says:
    August 23, 2017 at 9:07 am

    […] I tried to write from a Tweetspeak Poetry prompt about a flying machine from the point of view of the machine. So I wrote a series of haikus about […]

    Reply
  2. Steady as She Flies - Creative and Free says:
    August 25, 2017 at 10:05 am

    […] would it be like to be a flying machine? This week’s Tweetspeak Poetry prompt challenges the poet to write from an airborn structure’s perspective, inspired by animation. […]

    Reply
  3. Flying Machines Poetry Prompt: Wing Envy - says:
    August 28, 2017 at 8:01 am

    […] to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a poem by Monica written from a unique […]

    Reply

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