Animate is a poetry prompt that focuses on speaking as if we are a particular object or thing. This time, we’re speaking as Bridges & Tunnels.
Prompt Guidelines and Options
1. Speak in the first person.
2. Be specific. Think nouns instead of adjectives.
3. Consider where you—a bridge or a tunnel—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 bridge or tunnel that is like you or not like you. Be creative. Any type of situation is fair game.
4. Consider doing a little research about the bridge or tunnel you will speak as: folklore, 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 bridges & tunnels.
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Featured Poem
Thanks to everyone who participated in our last poetry prompt. Here is a poem from Prasanta we enjoyed:
When 19 at the Fontana Di Trevi
When I was 19
at the Fontana Di Trevi
I tossed in three coins
with the right hand
over the left shoulder
I lost track of where they landed
among hundreds of copper and silver bits
splattered like a random mosaic
on the fountain’s floor
I walked on then
through the long, narrow piazza
past the hungry pigeons
to the rest of the day, the rest of Italy
and the rest of my life
If the bits were underwater, drowning
they’d still catch fire, blaze,
transform, materialize
in a far-off future
or so it goes with magic and wishes
But years later
I’d find out the true charge for dreams
I’d collect a bag of gold and toss it all in
For friendship, love, happiness
Would it cost extra
for a certain pair of eyes
because tears and time
are too high of a price to pay
I’d drop in as many shiny, crisp coins needed
to end poverty, hunger,
cancer, disease
Tell me the cost
to end refugees’ wandering
and to build the homeless a home
What is the price to pay,
Fontana Di Trevi,
to end racial divides
and for men to respect women
as fellow creatures of dignity
I’ve been saving coins and wishes
ever since the day
I heard it on the news
since I saw you fleeing
since I saw you weeping
And I’ve been saving
for my own lonely heart
When 19
you think three coins is enough
At 19
it’s all you’ve got
But when you’re older
you’d gather all the gold of this world
and dump it in the fountain of wishes
if that’s all it took
Photo by Alyssa. Creative Commons via Flickr.
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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.
“How to Write a Poem is a classroom must-have.”
—Callie Feyen, English Teacher, Maryland
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L.L. Barkat says
If you would agree
to be kind,
I would lay myself
down,
a bridge
between now
and what’s never,
yet, been dreamed.
***
Happy New Year, Heather! 🙂
Donna Falcone says
🙂
Kindness. May it surround you in the new year and always, LL.
Happy New Year Heather! What a thought provoking prompt.
Heather Eure says
Thanks, Donna. Happy New Year, may it be chock full of art, poetry, and beauty.
Heather Eure says
Beautiful, L.L.
–and thank you, Happy New Year to you!
Debbie Crawford says
Beneath my rusty steel
Fires burn-the only warmth
for outstretched hands
that have no hope.
In tattered clothes
they wonder when
the next shelter
will become available.
For now there is
no room in the inn
and they are thankful
for my strong stable.
Their manger
a shredded Sealy
offering little relief
from the night’s bitter cold.
Commuters race home
to generous meals and
laughter among their loved ones.
Never knowing,
or perhaps ignoring
the homeless, the hopeless
beneath my rusty steel.
Donna Falcone says
Hello Debbie! I really like that image of ‘you’ as ‘strong stable.’
Thank you for sharing your poem today.
Sandra Heska King says
“Their manger a shredded Sealy.” That’s a powerful image.
Heather Eure says
I agree with Sandra, Debbie. The images you’ve created continue to turn in the mind after the poem is finished. Thank you for sharing your poem with us.
Donna Falcone says
Every visitor,
invited to pass (or un),
changes everything.
Soles leave impressions,
perceptible (or im), scribe
secret signatures.
Debbie says
Like this!
Heather Eure says
Clever, Donna. It took me a minute to make the connection (blame it on the winter wind), but aha! Got it. 🙂
Donna Falcone says
LOL thanks for hanging in there… it’s a little muddy still! 😉
Sandra Heska King says
To a Panther
Here
kitty,
kitty,
kitty.
This is the way.
Trot thou through it.
Note: Florida maintains several overpasses and underpasses that serve as safe crossings for the endangered panther as well as other wildlife that could become roadkill.
Debbie says
That’s interesting! I didn’t know that. Cute poem.
Laura Brown says
How do the panthers know?
Sandra Heska King says
Somehow the powers who be determine where they are most likely to cross and then install fencing and vegetation that kind of directs them to a safe crossing passage–sometimes a tunnel or culvert under the road.
Heather Eure says
“trot thou through it.”
Sandra, I will be using this line from now on when directing my high schoolers on career paths, college life, or difficult times. Endless possibilities, really.
Good stuff. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Prasanta… I would gather gold with you.
Heather Eure says
I know, right?!
Prasanta says
Thank you for sharing my poem, Heather!
Prasanta says
Sandra, I’d happily gather with you!
Laura Brown says
Goodness, with 446 bridges in the City of Bridges (or 2,000, depending on the criteria) and maybe a dozen tunnels, where does a Pittsburgher start?
Maureen says
Tunnel to me, love
I’ve built bridges of pillows
Soft like sounds of snow
Donna Falcone says
Oh, this is so beautiful Maureen.
Heather Eure says
This is gorgeous, Maureen.
Sandra Heska King says
“Soft like sounds of snow”
I love this, Maureen
Roslyn Ross says
That bridge you built
with sweating hands,
across my heart’s divide,
while secretly I tunnelled,
has brought us side to
side, and in the stretch
of moment, connected
as we were, both mind
and soul directed, that
we remain entwined.
Sandra Heska King says
I like the image of building a bridge across a divided heart.
Daniela Borrego says
Mighty twig
We can’t blame the builder
our ties were vacillant
from the first step
you took in my direction
I ignored the choking lines
and believed
as a twig could have confidence
in being thick and
well grounded
It takes two foundations
and what is in a name?
Your ties
too tight
brought matches
to set
out twigs
on fire
Let them burn.
Prasanta says
Souls tunnel back and forth
Bridging spaces between words
Dan Julian says
“Dig” or “Choice to Choice”
A mess of proteins, loosely termed a person
interfaced with a silicon-based logic engine,
entering into a choice-based virtual world
(commonly known as a text adventure)
wherein were presented behavioral options
such as go north, open door, climb stair, & so on…
whereupon, a flashing cursor appearing, the person signaled
“dig”
as the result of which command, I came into existence,
for I am a tunnel, with you as my witness
leading at once down and away
from the starting point of a simple game.
As to where I go, well, there’s a catch to that
which is that in bare point of fact
the game exists only in the mind
of the poet whose patchy some-what rhymes
you (if you do) now deign to read –
do you see? –
the poet who, in the spirit of reader satisfaction
even this moment is undertaking the action
of writing that I lead to an underground grotto
through the hollows of which a subterranean river flows
with on its banks a small flat watercraft,
by which I suppose daft poet means a raft…
At any rate, we’re left at the cursor, the logic engine, the person –
in other words, in some sense, I lead to where we began,
which, come to think of it, between me and you
all tunnels do.