Simplified from George Abraham’s open-ended prompt at a recent workshop, after Hala Alyan‘s Wife in Reverse:
Write a poem where you manipulate time or space in some way; try to keep yourself from manipulating both.
A box comes to your door; you open it, and something floods out, in great quantity, too much for you or your living space. Do you try to save yourself? Hold back the tide? Salvage the contents of the box?
Write an ad to get the roommate you think you deserve.
From Kaveh Akbar’s Portrait Of The Alcoholic With Home Invader And Housefly (available in Calling a Wolf a Wolf):
…It can be difficult
telling the size of something
when it’s right above you — the average
cumulus cloud weighing as much
as eighty elephants.
Using very precise images, explain something seemingly …
Select a specific aspect of your personality for an event, outing, or night in. Now dress that part of yourself: in costume, drag, or daily wear.
Throwback prompt from Adam Stone’s Crooked Treehouse:
Write about a female or non-binary inventor. If you are female or non-binary, write it however you wish. If you’re male-identified, then completely remove yourself from the poem. Don’t talk about how the female or non-binary inventor inspired you or changed your life or what her love …
Write the details of a complex trap to catch a human pest: a CEO, a telemarketer, or an online predator, for example.
Tell a story about a book you find on the street/in an airport/on the shelf of someone you don’t have much in common with.
Create an unlikely, non-violent personal security system to prevent people from invading your personal space.
Boston Poetry Slam Online