Adam Stone returns, bitterly from a national tour and offers the following prompt:
The Hypochondriac Explains the Universe to a Privileged Person
Category: tips from the bar
Tips from the Bar: The Vulture Prompt
A “ghost line” (per Rachel McKibbens) is a line you use to prompt or inform a poem, but erase from your work at the end. You can use a ghost line of your own devising, from daily life, or borrow one from another artist.
Try starting your poem with a ghost line: delete it …
Tips from the Bar: Emily O’s Debut
Write about one of your personal hells.
Tips from the Bar: The Oz Prompt
Write a poem that’s intentionally, terribly bad. Don’t be a bastard. Finish with the audience liking you.
Tips from the Bar: The Brian S. Ellis Prompt
From the news: someone has destroyed a famous work of art by punching it. You are in charge of restoring the piece. What do you do?
Or, from Brian: what piece of art would YOU punch?
Tips from the Bar: The Bobby Crawford Prompt
Tell us about the celebrity(/ies?!) you did not quite run over with your car.
Tips from the Bar: Bet You Can’t
See if you can think of a safe conversation topic that won’t inspire argument.
(And, of course, remember: when it comes to poetry, sometimes failure means more than success.)
Tips from the Bar: Doomsdaypocalypse
Present survival tips for the winter of 2015.
Tips from the Bar: And Also the Academy
Write a poem in the form of an acknowledgement page for your life. Include at least one person who you really, really wish you didn’t have to.
Tips from the Bar: The James Tate Prompt
Imagine offering the sort of advice that you never thought you would have to give to another human being.
Boston Poetry Slam Online