The Beachy Poem Challenge!

Summertime.

The beach.

We know the images, even if we’ve never been to the sea…

sun

sand

waves

Maybe a few sail boats on the water

On their own, none of these images might inspire a poem.

That’s where the Beachy Poem Challenge comes in…

Beachy rhymes with peachy. So we could start with that.

What if?

What if a peach showed up on a beach?

We do not need to write our whole poem to start. We might never write the poem. The challenge isn’t to write the poem. (Though we are certainly free to write the poem if we want.)

The challenge is to spice up familiar images by introducing new summer pairings.

PEACH + BEACH

SALT SHAKER + WAVES

SAIL BOATS + CHILI PEPPERS

We can draw these pairings. Or collage them. Mix up a few summer surprises. Shake free our poetic imagination. And then write a poem. (Or not.)

Summer Salt

Once, when I set out to shake free my imagination
I tripped over a chili pepper on the beach.

I wish it had been a peach.
(I love peaches.)

Though perhaps a chili pepper was just the right
encounter. It reminds me of a dolphin arched above

the waves, dressed in red. There is so much that can be said
about that color, but I will save it for February.

Right now, it’s summer. There is salt falling like rain
over a blue sea.

Between the peach, and the chili pepper, and the beach,
it is making me hungry for falling back on memories

—or maybe for falling forward into poetry, where anything
under the sun can always (always!) become whatever it might please.

If You Take the Beachy Poem Challenge

Feel free to share what you…

• draw

• collage

• or write

Share it with us here in the comment box or on Instagram by August 15, 2026.

We might include your entry in a post (unless you tell us not to when you share. 🙂