Poetry Challenge #179-KIND Random Acts

One reason I love Valentine’s Day is Conversation Hearts, those chalky pastel hearts imprinted with love notes. When I was a kid, we’d sift through the tiny box searching for those with specific saying to share. (In the process eating the misprinted and broken ones.) In sixth grade, I gave one to Gary Hall which read BE MINE. He popped it into his mouth and held out his hand for another…didn’t even both to read it! If I could have do overs I’d choose one with a different four-letter word after BE: K-I-N-D.

It has been decided that we all need to be reminded to Be Kind and so Valentine’s Week has been officially declared Random Acts of Kindness Week, and smack dab in the middle—in case a whole week of being randomly kind is a hardship—Feb. 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day.

Poetry Challenge #179

Random Acts of Kindness

Today in honor of Random Acts of Kindness Day, let’s write a Random Acts of Poetry poem . . .  with very specific, seemingly random, rules:

# of lines: the digits of today’s date (or whichever day you choose) added together (If it’s the 17th, add 1+7=8 and write 8 lines or if you’d rather go with the year: 2+0+2+1=5, write 5 lines)

# of words on the line: the number of letters in the month. (For example, February has 8, write 8 words per line; or 3 for Feb.)

Repeating letter: the 3rd letter of your name. Use this letter as many times as possible. (Mine’s L; what’s yours?)

Rhyme scheme: ABCCBA…repeated as long as you need it. That means the 3rd and 4th lines rhyme, as well as the 2nd and 4th, and the 1st and 6th.

You can write about kindness or random or acts or anything else you can think of.

Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes

Start Writing

Don’t Think About it, do it! BE KIND

And if, like me, you are heartened by accounts of other’s kindness, click over to The Kindness Pandemic Facebook page. Throughout this pandemic, whenever I need a boost (several times some days) I click over to read a story. What generous amazing people there are in this world. Kindness is Contagious!

Here’s the official website link with activities, suggestions, color sheets, too: Random Acts of Kindness.org.

Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1766 days ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

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