Welcome to the place that is dedicated to getting you writing (again?). Maybe you have absolutely no idea where to start but have always wanted to try being a writer. Maybe you want to write the great American novel or you thought you'd write a poem about hidden life of a grain of sand. Maybe you just need a little inspiration to get you started or you find yourself just a little stuck. Maybe you find yourself trying to break out of your comfort zone or mix things up at work. Whatever your reason for landing here, practicing a little creativity can impact your life in ways you didn't expect.
But let's be honest. Creativity is a muscle and it needs exercise to work properly. That's where this series comes in. With any luck, this series will get your creative juices flowing and get you thinking in ways you hadn't before. Throughout the summer, we posted a couple of prompts every week. We cut back a little during the school year but will attempt to post at least one prompt a month. If you are interested in more, not only are there prompt sites online, we also have a prompt booklet you can get from us and enough creative people on staff to maybe come up with an idea you can run with if you come in and ask.
It's National Poetry Month. In the spirit of things, let's wax poetic. There are more styles of poetry than you could even imagine. There is the extremely Shakespearian iambic pentameter, the rhyme-phobic free verse, the confoundingly exhaustive epic poem, the short and snappy haiku. Every country, culture, race, religion, or other group of people has their own style. Rap and hip hop are full of poetry, most music is. Some is good, some isn't. There are communal forms of poetry as well as personal/individual. Poetry speaks to us in ways that normal communication just cannot. Even the bad stuff.
Poetry can communicate a whole range of emotions from the simple to complex, ecstatic to the devastated, irate to confused, grandiose and verbose to subtly laconic and contained (and no, fancy words are not required). It can be as simple as Margaret Atwood's "You Fit Into Me":
you fit into me like a hook into an eye
a fish hook an open eye
And with that uncomfortable image in our heads, I look to the past couple of years filled with a global sense of isolation and fear and say good riddance. No need to turn this into another "Odyssey."
As we hopefully see the numbers of cases continue to fall from this pandemic and a return to communal life, even if with some changes, let's send this pandemic into the eternal night in epic style. Puns intended.
Write a poem to send the pandemic off right. Your choice on the style and tone.
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