Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

By Hand: No Hands

By Megan Willome 3 Comments


By Hand is a monthly prompt that focuses on freeing our words by using our hands. This month, we’re exploring what happens to our words when our hands are tired.
_______________

In April I moved my dad from the ranch-style house he and my mom bought in 1971 to a two-bedroom next door to us. The word “moved” encompasses many verbs, including drive, open, close, clean, pick up, put down, drop off, pack, unpack, trash, donate, wrap, unwrap, haul, rip, call, schedule, text an army of helpers. By the start of week five, my hands were tired. No, tired doesn’t touch it. Let’s add more words: bruised, twitchy, achy, sore.

Do something by hand? No thank you. I started typing this intro and had to stop and let my hands rest, along with my brain.

Sometimes we use our hands too much. When that happens our words can become just as stuck as when we use them too little.

I’m starting to use my hands again. Last night I made a batch of vegan chocolate peanut butter cookies. Tomorrow I’ll try plunking out something from my mom’s hymnal, which I discovered in the move. The words are coming back too.

I need to keep in mind these lessons about the relationship between hands and words because I have one more hand-intensive task this month — moving my daughter into her first apartment.

Prompt Guidelines and Options

1. When swiping on a Kindle or turning pages was too labor-intensive, Audible was there to fulfill my reading needs. I finished two books, one fiction and one non-fiction, letting my thoughts wander down pleasant paths while I worked with my hands. Try listening to something this week—music or a podcast, while you work with your hands.

2. If your hands fail you, fear not! We live in a digital age, in which words can be dictated. These last few weeks I learned to use apps to record thoughts. Try recording something this week.

3. It was a good month for haiku. Try out a haiku, using different kinds of pens, pencils, crayons, and paper.

That’s it! We look forward to what you create — or at least think about creating — when you do it By Hand.

 

Photo by Farhan Perdana (Blek), Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome, author of The Joy of Poetry.

Browse more By Hand

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.
Megan Willome
Latest posts by Megan Willome (see all)
  • Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
  • Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
  • By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022

Filed Under: Blog, By Hand, writing prompts

Try Every Day Poems...

About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.

Comments

  1. Laura Lynn Brown says

    May 25, 2018 at 11:47 am

    How do birds do it?
    Make nests, eggs, songs, a ruckus?
    Look, Ma(gpie). No hands.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      May 25, 2018 at 11:54 am

      Love it, Laura!

      On one late-summer trip to Estes Park, Colorado, I spent all of my porch time watching those pesky magpies. They’re pretty darn resourceful, even without hands.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Tweetspeak Poetry: By Hand: No Hands says:
    August 3, 2018 at 4:55 pm

    […] By Hand: No Hands […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • 10 Ways to Help Your Favorite Introverted Author: 1,000 Words - Tweetspeak Poetry on The Joy of Poetry: As Much as She Could Carry
  • Donna Hilbert on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • L.L. Barkat on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - Tweetspeak Poetry on Love, Etc.: Poems of Love, Laughter, Longing & Loss

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy