Many poets take part in a 30/30 challenge in April (which is Poetry Month). What is 30/30? It is a personal challenge to write 30 poems (however unfinished they may be) in 30 days. It takes you out of your comfort zone, gets your creative juices flowing, and it is fun. You can take it as seriously as you like – or not!
In April 2017, 23 Stroll members signed up to participate in the challenge. Nine members regularly shared poems with each other online throughout the month. Poets could chose from two daily prompts or write about anything else they liked.
Below you will find the daily prompts for 2017 and a sample of poems from Day 23 – this was the only day on which all online participants followed the same prompt!
Day 23 – write a double elevenie (an eleven-word poem of five lines)
[the alternative prompt was “Sunshine all the time makes a desert.” – (Arab Proverb)]
Morning
Morning
White snow
Dump in April
Spring delayed once again
Bummer
Leaves
Of tulips
Droop in gardens
No sun to nourish
Flowers
Jocelyne V
Caught in the Act
Inspiration –
breathe in
into the deep
to the absolute core
shift
Expiration –
breathe out
words of art
proof of life’s happening –
repeat
Ellen K
Birthday
Birthday
56 years
Shared with family
Celebrate and eat cake
Happy
Age
Getting older
Another laugh line
More rosehip face cream
Mature
Cheryl M
Growing into peace
anger
hot flash
seeing only faults
words I will regret
division
tolerance
cool breath
seeing all colours
words for mutual learning
community
Trudy G
Inner Life
Melancholy
Seeps crawls
Inside all hearts
I know myself well
Surrender
Surrender
Releases raises
Builds me up
Give up let go
Freedom
Josh L
Climate inversion
Winter
haunts May
on the prairies.
Slush lakes at intersections.
Ka-whoosh!
Summer
visits January
in central Alberta.
Golf shorts, brown greens.
Sunscreen.
Gary G
We Summoned the Poets
Poets
fiercely brown
take the stage
stand for us, deliver
pride.
Years
frustrating labourious
bloom here now
young voices, breathing fire
alive.
Anna Marie S
Gifts
Pemmican
forestalls starvation
during Prairie winters.
A gift freely shared,
One-sided.
Sara C
Day 1 – write something that is short, has tight lines, rhymes interwoven throughout, maybe an animal or two, and a sharp little philosophical conclusion
OR “There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.” – (John Cage)
Day 2 – write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe
OR “pure at heart”
Day 3 – write an elegy
OR “infinite termination”
Day 4 – write a poem with a word or idea or line that it isn’t expressing directly
OR “the illusion of time”
Day 5 – write a poem that is based in the natural world: about a slice of the natural world that you have personally experienced and optimally, one that you have experienced often
OR “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – (Frederick Douglas)
Day 6 – write a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view
OR “life without“
Day 7 – write a poem about luck and fortuitousness, objects you’ve lost, objects you’ve found
OR “polymorphic existence“
Day 8 – write a poem that relies on repetition
OR “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” – (Maya Angelou)
Day 9 – write a nine-line poem
OR “reciprocal mobility”
Day 10 – write a poem that is a portrait of someone important to you
OR “secret of patience“
Day 11 – the Bop is a kind of combination sonnet + song. A six-line stanza introduces the problem, an eight-line stanza discusses and develops the problem, and another six-line stanza resolves or concludes the problem. Each stanza is followed by a one-line refrain.
OR “How did it get so late so soon?” – (Dr. Seuss)
Day 12 – write a poem that explicitly incorporates alliteration (the use of repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (the use of repeated vowel sounds)
OR “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” – (Zora Neale Hurston)
Day 13 – A ghazal is formed of couplets, each of which is its own complete statement. Both lines of the first couplet end with the same phrase or end-word, and that end-word is also repeated at the end of each couplet.
OR “singing in the rain”
Day 14 – a clerihew is a four line poem biographical poem that satirizes a famous person
OR “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” – (Zora Neale Hurston)
Day 15 – write a poem that reflects on the nature of being in the middle of something OR “heart like a garden”
Day 16 – take your inspiration from the act of letter-writing
OR “thinking and becoming“
Day 17 – write a nocturne
OR “A poem is not a pop-tart.” – (Martín Espada)
Day 18 – write a poem that incorporates neologisms (made-up words)
OR “If you understood everything I say, you’d be me!” – (Miles Davis)
Day 19 – write a poem that recounts a creation myth
OR “three things that matter“
Day 20 – write a poem that incorporates the vocabulary and imagery of a specific sport or game
OR “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” – (Toni Morrison)
Day 21 – write a poem that incorporates overheard speech
OR “sudden trouble“
Day 22 – in honour of Earth Day, write a georgic – a practical and instructional guide regarding agricultural concerns that also offers political commentary
OR “cost of living“
Day 24 – write a poem of ekphrasis – that is, a poem inspired by a work of art
OR “letting go“
Day 25 – write a poem that explores a small, defined space
OR “politics of trends“
Day 26 – explore a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist
OR “Hope is never silent.” ― (Harvey Milk)
Day 27 – write a poem that explores your sense of taste
OR “love and hate”
Day 28 – write a poem using Skeltonic verse
OR “agnostic hubris“
Day 29 – take one of your favorite poems and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. Spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use your original word and the results of your free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem.
OR “fear and loathing“
Day 30 – write a poem about something that happens again and again
OR “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” – (Gloria Steinem)