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Hi fellow poets of The Ink Well community.
This is @raj808 here to hopefully provide an up-welling of poetic expression and expel those writers' block blues. These prompts are meant as a fulcrum; a pivot point for pumping the nourishing water of inspiration from the depths of The Ink Well.
This week is all about getting out of your comfort zone.
Just to be clear all or part of any of my prompt suggestions can be ignored if you like... any good poetry posted to The Ink Well gets treated with respect and read. These prompts are just great tools for a writer to break a creative block or learn to move beyond a typical style.
My idea for this week (a little less technical or involved as I'm ill) is simply to ask people to think about trying to step out of their writing comfort zone in one, or more, aspects of their poetry.
Thematically: perhaps you mainly write about nature and the wild places of this world. Or maybe you always write very internalized poetry that focuses on your inner world. In the first example you might decide to write a poem solely focused on technology or a city environment. In the second example you might strive to keep the majority of your poem following a descriptive narrative of actions happening to yourself, or others, or both.
Stylistically: maybe you write very image heavy poetry. By this I mean a lot of simile and metaphor that is quite ephemeral. There is nothing wrong with that in moderation, but to step out of that comfort zone you could try writing very pared down poetry which relies more on situational parody or rhythmic device to build artistry within the verse structure. Many great performance poets do this very well.
Although I do feel imagery is essential to poetry, it is possible to make your simile and metaphor more concrete. A good example would be this poem called 'The Worker' by Richard W. Thomas.
My father lies black and hushed
Beneath white hospital sheets
He collapsed at work
His iron left him
Slow and quiet he sank
Meeting the wet concrete floor on his way
The wheels were still turning—they couldn’t stop
Red and yellow lights flashing
Gloved hands twisting knobs—they couldn’t stop
And as they carried him out
The whirring and buzzing and humming machines
Applauded him
Lapping up his dripping iron
They couldn’t stop
Notice how much of this poem describes action to create the story eliciting an emotional response. There is only one reoccurring metaphor about his father's iron spirit - 'Lapping up his dripping iron.' Which echoes a similar metaphor in the first verse, while providing such a powerful comparison with the iron in blood.
Just like the last poetry challenge I've made this as open ended as I could while still providing a prompt.
Write in free verse, or in form, or maybe perform a spoken word rap style expressive poem. Let yourself be free to unleash the creative muse unfettered by any conventions unless you want to follow them.
My only ask, if you do take part in the prompt, is to follow the main idea of stepping outside your comfort zone.
I wish I had the energy to write more about methods you could employ to push you outside that comfortable writing style we all develop, but I just don't have it in me right now.
This challenge will run for eight days until next Thursday when I shall hopefully provide another poetic prompt on time.
I hope you guys have fun writing outside your comfort zone, and I look forward to reading all of your poems.
Thanks for reading.
As some of you already know, I'm ill and suspect it to be the dreaded covid-19. However I'm displaying comparatively mild symptoms so please don't worry about me. This will however mean that I might publish less content, prompts and newsletters from this community account until I feel 100% again.
I would like to invite any lovers of poetry and short stories to visit the new hive community I started with @stormlight24 called The Ink Well.
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I did not know you suspected you have covid 19. I'm sure you will be fine. I suspect my daughter had it as well, and she has two autoimmune conditions, one a gut condition. She was sick, yes, but on the sixth day was perfectly fine. You've got this.
Cool challenge. My first thought was to do a spoken word, that I have heard often and attended readings of, but never written or said. We'll see.
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