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Form It: Satin Bow Poetry Prompt

By L.L. Barkat 5 Comments

form prompt satin bowForm It is a prompt that focuses on exploring our topic through form poetry. This time, we’re going to “form” a satin bow.

Prompt Guidelines and Options

1. Consider how you are feeling today, as you approach your topic. Are you sorrowful? Overflowing with joy or good humor? Maybe you’re in a snarky frame of mind. Or feeling perplexed. Perhaps you’re just in the mood to tell a story or express gratitude or awe. You could also consider the nature of the topic itself. Think on these things before you…

2. Choose a form that either matches or purposely works against how you feel as you approach your topic, or that matches or purposely works against the nature of the topic itself. Options:

Acrostic (good for creating puzzles and mystery or dedications)

Ballad (excellent way to tell a story)

Catalog Poem (useful for building intensity, praise, or a sense of magic)

Cinquain (a good form for creating a sense of focus on a single experience, possibly with a twist ending or a terse ending)

Ghazal (helpful for emphasizing “longing” or for exploring metaphysical questions)

Haiku (good for creating immediacy or focusing in on emotion)

Ode (excellent way to praise something or someone you love or admire)

Pantoum (useful for plumbing depressive or anxious themes)

Rondeau (helpful for giving form to extremes of either sadness or dark wit)

Sestina (good for exploring confusion, questions, worries, neuroses, fears in an oblique way)

Sonnet (excellent way to confine a bombastic theme or rein in a potentially sappy or overly-sentimental theme; also an excellent way to “work against” a topic humorously)

Villanelle (useful for themes that feel resistant to answers; also can be used to “work against” a topic, using mocking humor)

3. Be specific. Think nouns instead of adjectives.

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

That’s it! We look forward to hearing you form poetically, about a satin bow.

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Featured Poem

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here is a recent poem from Donna we fancied:

I, just these two feet
to cross a hundred thousand
bridges, more or less

—by Donna Falcone

Photo by Anders Ljungberg. Creative Commons via Flickr.

Browse more satin & velvet
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Browse poetry teaching resources

How to Write a Poem 283 highHow 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
L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' She has also served as a writer for The Huffington Post blog. Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.
L.L. Barkat
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Filed Under: Blog, Form It, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, Satin & Velvet, writer's group resources, writing prompt

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About L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' She has also served as a writer for The Huffington Post blog. Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.

Comments

  1. Donna Falcone says

    February 12, 2018 at 10:14 am

    Thank you
    Heather.
    A share can feel like a wi
    N
    K across cyber
    Space…..

    😉

    Reply
  2. Rick Maxson says

    February 12, 2018 at 4:22 pm

    her curls
    in banderoles
    blue-fangled satin made
    in loops and knots in hopeless dreams
    dreamt he

    Reply
  3. Katie says

    March 4, 2018 at 2:52 pm

    bright bow
    sculpted ribbon
    shiny lapis blue pearl
    folds, swirl, over, under, around
    winner

    Reply
    • Katie says

      May 17, 2018 at 11:33 pm

      bright bow
      sculpted ribbon
      shiny lapis blue pearl
      folds, swirls, in, out, up, down, around
      winner

      Reply
  4. Christos Victor says

    March 15, 2018 at 6:27 pm

    Bow

    child’s hands glow
    making a satin bow

    wired plaid ribbon
    two spools are given
    laid on another; told
    loop and fold, be bold!

    chenille ties twist
    you have the gist
    pull apart and fill
    cut the tails with skill

    you’re done now
    smile take a bow

    Reply

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