Poetry Prompts: Finding Inspiration
“There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low
enough." -William Stafford
"A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by
lightning.”—James Dickey
Directions: Keep this sheet. It contains more than 50 ideas for starting a
poem! Sometimes a specific prompt number may be assigned, but other times
you will choose one. I’ve even attached some inspirational quotes to some of
them as food for thought. Of course, there is nothing wrong with selecting the
same prompt twice and yielding two different poems from it. Although we won’t get to use all of
these prompts, there are plenty to choose from. If you ever get writer’s block on a poem you began
without a prompt, just consider how putting that poem into the perspective of one of these prompts
could get you unstuck!
Helping the Flow: Give yourself permission to write freely while you are drafting. Resist the urge
to judge. Creation and evaluation are two very different mindsets, and if you start to criticize
yourself or cast doubt, you run the risk of stifling your thoughts even before they have had a change
to get rolling!
Sensitive Subject Matter: Anything you feel is important for you to write, I am always willing to
read. I encourage you to take risks with your thinking, experiment with forms and techniques, and
write about whatever topics inspire you. However, when students write about topics such as suicide,
cutting, or school violence—whether their own or a fictional character’s—the poem needs to be sent
to Guidance. It does not necessarily mean that you are in trouble. I’m sure that if I had a guidance
counselor today, I would be sent to his/her office for some of my poems.  It is healthier (and
safer) to explore some things on paper that we wouldn’t necessarily do in real life. Just because I
write a poem about shoplifting doesn’t mean that I’m a criminal, right? However, if you write a
poem about personal violence, please submit two copies to me so I can forward one to your
counselor. Thanks!
If you get stuck, go do something else for a while. “In a famous story told by Robert Frost, he had
stopped work after staying up all night to craft a long poem and was standing in a doorway,
watching the sun rise, when ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ came to him suddenly,
without any effort. That is the paradox of poetic technology. Far from being something laid on top
of pure inspiration, something wholly unrelated, the work of poetic craft, if done in skilled and
attentive way, will bring you full circle back into the realm of inspiration” (Finch 3).
50+ poetry prompts just waiting for you to dig in! . . .
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1. Take a Leap. Write the poem you cannot write.
a. “Confront the dark parts of yourself.... Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your
angels to sing."—August Wilson.
b. “It is time to experiment, time to leave the well-ordered but stuffy classroom, time to restore a vulgar
vitality to poetry and unleash the energy now trapped in the subculture. There is nothing to lose.
Society has already told us that poetry is dead.” –Dana Gioia.
c. “Why not say what happened?"—Robert Lowell.
d. "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."—Anne Sexton
2. Hello, Snowflake. Write a poem about something that is so uniquely you that no one else could have even
written about it—or at least not in the same odd way. For example, I wrote “Slide-Rule Cowboy,” a poem
about how my dad was sixty, but he rode a mechanical bull without my knowing it, and then just casually
told me about it. I wrote “Reading the Destructions” about the toys and dolls that I tore apart as a curious kid.
3. Dedication. Write a poem that you’re dedicating to someone. The dedication doesn’t have to be in the title,
but it could be.
4. Title First. Come up with an unusual title you like; then write the poem. For example, I wrote “For My
Mother, Who Cannot Swim.”
5. Love-less Love Poem. Write a love poem that does not use the word love. (You can’t cheat by
simply using synonyms such as admire, adore, or like.) "Use the right word and not its second
cousin." —Mark Twain
6. Ode. Write an ode to something or someone who is still alive. See Neruda’s “Ode to the Sea.”
7. Elegy. Write an elegy as a tribute to a deceased person. See Bryan Turner’s AB Negative “ and
“Eulogy.”
8. Credo Poem. Write a poem that is a statement of belief in something.
9. Transpositions.
a. Poem Transposition. Pick a narrative poem you admire from another time or place and
retell the same basic story, using characters and setting from your own time and place.
b. Fairy Tale Transposition: Use the same that was just described, but instead of a poem,
choose a fairy tale or nursery rhyme and modernize it. For example, I had a student who retold “Little Red Riding Hood,” but instead of a little girl and a wolf, the poem was about a
teenage girl and a creepy guy she met online. At the end, Lil’ Red delivered justice to the
predatory “wolf.”)
c. Two Sides to Every Story. Take fairy tale and rewrite it from the viewpoint of another
character. For example, use the wolf to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
10. List (Catalogue) Poem. Write a poem that is basically a list. The sentences can be long or short.
Consider R. S. Gwynn’s “Shakespearean Sonnet” as an example.
11. Prayer. Write a poem that is a kind of prayer, meditation, mantra, or incantation, request, or spell.
Think of Robert Pinsky’s “Samurai Song” or King David’s “Psalm 23.”
a. Always pull back—and see how silly we must look to God." —Jack Kerouac
b. "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard."—Anne Sexton
c. "Writing should be done on your knees."—William Maxwell
12. Art as Inspiration. Write a poem that was inspired by a piece of art, whether it’s a painting,
sculpture, drawing, etc. This is called an ekphrastic poem.
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13. Farewell! Write a poem that is a goodbye to someone…or something.
14. Thank You. Write a poem as a thank-you or in gratitude for something or someone. It can be a
sincere thank you, a sarcastic thank you, or a make-believe thank you for something quite odd.
15. Breakup Poem. Write a poem about heartache or a breakup. It can be real or imaginary.
16. Research Riot. Do a bit of research on a subject you are interested in but know little about, and use
it as inspiration for a poem.
17. Etymology Poem. Look up the etymology (word origin) of a word or place, and use it as the
foundation of your poem.
18. Get Ugly. Write a really ugly poem.
19. Talking Back. Reply to a poem you read in the Poetry Anthology.
20. Fake Biography. Write a poem with an invented biography for yourself. "I always write from my
own experiences whether I've had them or not."—Ron Carlson
21. Persona Poem: Fortune Teller. Speaking as a fortuneteller, tell a fortune. The first line is: “You
will take a strange journey....” Finish the prediction/forecast by describing the journey and giving
instructions or advice or even warnings for the journey.
22. Sólo Uno. Write a poem of at least 40 lines that is a single sentence.
23. Insincere Apology. Write a poem in which the speaker’s apology doesn’t quite seem sincere, as in
William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say.”
24. Family Secret. Write about a family secret. "Truth is not an unveiling which destroys the secret,
but a revelation that does it justice."—Walter Benjamin
25. Waiting for Godot. Write about someone waiting for something.
26. Color Me Interested. Write about a color without naming the color—or its kin, e.g., no fair using
“crimson” “scarlet” or “ruddy” instead of red.
27. Inanimate Object Persona Poem. Take any object out of your bag or pocket or purse. Speaking in
first person AS THE OBJECT, answer the following questions (in any order): What is your favorite
thing? What are you scared of? What is your secret? What is your wish for the future?
28. One-Is-All-And-All-Are-One. Write a piece at least 50 words long using only one-syllable words.
29. Space Traveler. Take a common object, such as a flowerpot, boot or paperclip, and write about it
as if you’ve never seen such a thing before (e.g., you’re from the future and have just excavated it,
or are from another planet).
30. Anagram. Take the name of a favorite poet and anagram it. (Use its letters to make a phrase or
sentence.) Use this to begin a poem.
31. Protest Poem. Write a protest poem or a poem that involves social awareness and responsibility.
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32. What Work is For You: Write about a job you have had, whether you loathed it or loved it. Write
from your own experience but go beyond the literal! Keep the poem in the present tense, and be
sure there is a physical action involved, such as scrubbing floors, dissecting chickens, helping
someone use the toilet.
33. “Meta” Poem or Ars Poetica. Write about poetry, or the nature of writing poetry (ars poetica).
34. Recipe. Imagine a drink or food dish that would bring you fully alive. Write the recipe.
35. Not the Last. Begin with, “This is not the last poem I will write…”
36. Apostrophe (direct address). Write an apostrophe to some abstraction or inanimate object (e.g.,
"To the End of the World," "To My Birth," “To My Jammed Locker,” or “To My Zit”).
37. A Dozen Sparks. Quickly pick out 12 words from the titles of books on a nearby bookshelf. Use
them in a poem.
38. Variations on Pain.
a. Apostrophe to Your Personal Pain: "Dear Pad of My Thumb, Will you kindly stop
hurting? It is very hard for me to stir a pot or write a poem when you hurt like this..."
b. Right Back at Ya. Let your pain write back to you: "Dear Joe, if you would lay off the text
messaging and playing minesweeper it would help me a lot, then you can write your poem or
stir a pot..." (This one isn’t really an apostrophe, but it’s a persona poem that personifies
Pain.)
c. Apostrophe to Your Community Pain. Write to your hurting country, city or community,
as a variation on the theme. Take the dialogue as far as it goes, then distill the essence. See if
you can arrive at a fresh insight about what ails you and yours.
39. Ironic Form. Write a poem in which the form contradicts the content.
40. Headline. Pick a word from today’s headlines and write a definition poem for it.
41. Junk Mail: Take a piece of junk mail and black out most of the words so that what remains is a
poem.
42. Feeling Moody. Write a poem that focuses on creating a specific mood (i.e. frantic, creepy,
tranquil, etc.)
43. Definition or explanation
44. “How To”. Write a how-to poem, or write about how you learned to do something. One interesting
title I read was, “How I Learned to Lie.”
45. Metamorphosis. Write a poem about something that transforms into more or less than it starts out
to be.
46. Kitchen Table. Write 100 words (any kind of words) about your kitchen table.
47. Concrete Poem. Write a poem where the shape ties in with the meaning (i.e. a poem shaped like an
umbrella, where the poem is about a sheltering friendship). Refer to John Hollander’s book, or ask
me to take a look through it.
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48. Invent a Form. For example, “Joan Retallack’s experimental poem for an AIDS victim…is driven
by its invented form, which drops certain letters of the alphabet from each new stanza” (Finch 18).
49. Sound. Write a poem that concentrates heavily on sound.
50. One Device. Pick a poetic device that you have not used before, one you’re curious about and
would like to experiment with. Use in it a poem.
For Groups
51. Word Share. Each person picks out a few favorite words and says a little bit about why they like it
(sound, image, meaning, etc.). Someone writes each of the words on the board. Then, each person
writes a poem that includes all the favorite words (or as many of them as they can manage). It is
best to do this in a serious manner, not as a joke, though some of the poems will end up being
funny. Then read them aloud and compare how different people handle different words, what
choices they made, and so on. You will note characteristics of different writers based on how they
do things, so it is a good getting-acquainted exercise.
52. Secrets. Each person writes down a secret—either a real one, or a made-up one, or a borrowed one.
The teacher or facilitator redistributes the secrets, and each person writes a poem in the voice of the
owner of the secret they have received” (59). This exercise is Garrett Hongo’s contribution to Behn
and Twichell’s The Practice of Poetry.
Challenges
53. Fixed Form. Try a poem in a verse form we studied, such as sonnet, sestina, villanelle, blues, or
ballad.
54. More Forms. If you are looking for a very big challenge in the future, you could try to learn a form
that we have not studied, such as bop, ghazal, glosa, rondeau, triolet, or tritina. You would need to
look up the parameters of the form, but they are easy enough to find online. “The more art is
controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free…The more constraints one imposes, the more
one frees oneself of the chains that shackle to spirit.” -Igor Stravinsky
55. Allegory. Write an allegorical poem, as in William Blake’s “The Poison Tree.”
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