Not sure where to begin when crafting a poem (or learning about a new concept)? Join Callie Feyen to write blackout poetry from new and unfamiliar material.
Writing Prompt: Play With Your Food
Creative nonfiction writer, Callie Feyen, takes help from poet Tania Runyan to write food poetry. Come along and craft your own poem or story—purple carrots optional!
Poetry Prompt: Find a Farm Skeleton
Creative nonfiction writer, Callie Feyen, takes help from poet Tania Runyan to try to write farm poetry. Come along and craft your own (with or without the talking goat.)
Writing Prompt: Beach Metaphors
How is an exploration on the beach like an experience in a new school, a new town, or a new phase of life? Come write with a beach metaphor!
Writing Prompt: Speckled Scenes
What is mysterious and magnificent about speckles? What excites us about small patches of color on a summer’s evening? Join us as for a speckled writing prompt.
Poetry Prompt: Sparkler Sensory Poems
Summers mean sparklers! A spark doesn’t last; its impression – the color, the singe, the crackle – does. Join us this week and bring that impression to others when you try your hand at sparkler sensory poetry.
Poetry Prompt: Fireworks, Sparkles & Speckles
Take a little time to engage in some sparkly living this week. Pay special attention to what glints and gleams, sparkles and speckles, or… explodes!
Writing Prompt: Science Fiction and Ecopoetry
Reports on the state of the planet’s future can sound like dystopian science fiction. Can they also be a clarion call that enlivens our creativity? Join us as we write about our interconnection to the world we’re part of.
Poetry Prompt: Science Fiction with Ray Bradbury
Go on a walk after reading Ray Bradbury’s story “The Pedestrian,” then craft a sci-fi poem to share with us where your rambles took you.
Poetry Prompt: Science Fiction with Ursula K. Le Guin
Try writing a poem inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, where setting is everything, whether it’s the California foothills, the banks of a creek bravely winding its way to the ocean, or an utterly new planet that only you have explored!
Poetry Prompt: Science Fiction with Tony Wolk
This week we’re spending time in our notebooks tracing the lines of connection, the poems we can’t forget, the books we always return to, reflecting on their influence on our poetry—and maybe sharing a poem to illustrate.
Poetry Prompt: Haiku Picture Books
Pour a cup of tea and enjoy these haiku picture books (including a cat tale!) that will make you smile and get you writing.
Poetry Prompt: The Tanka’s Turn
Can you write a poem in 31 syllables that takes the reader in an unexpected direction?
Poetry Prompt: Japanese Art and the Tanka
There’s a long tradition of poetry being inspired by painting and other fine arts. Come write tanka inspired by Japanese art!
Tanka Poetry Prompt: What’s a Tanka?
This month, we’ll explore the ancient Japanese form called the tanka. This lesser known form might be thought of as haiku’s quiet older sibling.
Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt—The Tempest as Fairy Tale
Explore Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and write a fairy tale poem about a royal birth where magic is afoot and things aren’t what they seem.
Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt: Celebration
Join us as we write about celebrating birthdays, and consider how the formal aspects of our poems add emotional resonance to personal observations.
Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt: Hidden Riches
A chunk of quartz crystal caught my eye. Inside the quartz were ribbons of tourmaline, October’s birthstone. What is the hidden gem in your writing?
Top 10 Totally Fun Teaching Ideas for National Poetry Month
You’ve got the whole month of April to celebrate National Poetry Month. We’ve got the cut ‘n color poets and top 10 teaching ideas—for you to make it the most fun and informative thirty days ever!
Birthdays & Birthstones Poetry Prompt: A Rossetti List Poem
Come write poetry inspired by Christina Rossetti’s list poem “The Months” and see if you like how she describes your birthday month.