Guest workshopper Sara Brickman offered a two-part prompt in a workshop before her show:
FIRST: Write down your most recent nightmare. If you can’t remember it, write down an anxiety dream, or a recurring nightmare you can remember.
THEN: [Highlight this text only after you’ve completed step 1.] Imagine you are on a dinner date …
What object that we use every day is actually alien technology? How do you know?
What part of your body has most recently Poké-evolved? What do you most miss about it? Does its departure change or benefit you in any way?
Who runs the world? Squirrels.
Bring us a poem with a squirrel in it… Yes, even if a squirrel seems an unlikely participant in the poem you intended to write.
Have you ever had a partner that didn’t get along with your pet? Or a pet that didn’t get along with your partner? How did you explain this? What did you do?
Ripped from the headlines: this week in Michigan, a woman was arrested for saying inappropriate things to a mall Easter bunny.
Is there something you wish you had said to the mall bunny, Santa, or other character? Is there something you would say now? If you were working in this capacity, what do you …
Adam Stone rehashes a prompt given by Omoizele Okoawo in 2002:
“All I need is a room.”
Consider the thing you would most like to eat right now: something that would fortify you emotionally, digestively, or gustatorily. Now compare it to the thing you most recently ate.
Write a poem using the Botnik keyboard of your choice.
Consider a work-related nightmare (the waking or dreaming kind). Revise it to fit your own needs.
Boston Poetry Slam Online