Poetry Challenge #196-Simple Poem of Freedom
Juneteenth! Jubilee Day! Liberty Day! Freedom Day! is this Saturday, June 19th. That’s the official day marking the end of slavery in Texas and the United States. About 2 months after the end of the Civil War, on June 19th, 1865, U.S. General Gordon Granger march into Galveston, Texas and read General Orders No. 3:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.
Saying-proclaiming-making laws—declaring slaves free—is not the same as doing it. As U.S. History since June 19, 1985 has shown, we the people have repeatedly, in myriad ways—social, fiscal, political, physical—tried to maintain slavery. Finally, now—again?—awareness that the U.S. Constitution’s promise to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity is resulting in active change in support of all peoples’ rights. Let’s join the Juneteenth Celebration with, to paraphrase Bobby Darin , a simple poem for freedom.
Poetry Challenge #196
Poem of Freedom
In celebration of Juneteenth, write a poem of freedom. It might be a prayer, a hope, a promise, but, in the spirit of Bobby Darin’s Simple Song of Freedom, try writing it in the form of a chant or song. To do that write:
A rhythmic stanza of at least 4 lines (rhyming or not),
A rhyming refrain (of at least 2 lines)
Another rhythmic stanza in the form of the first.
Continue the pattern: stanza-refrain-stanza as long as you’d like. End your poem of freedom with the refrain or a riff on the refrain.
Let Freedom—for all—ring!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #194-Make Mine Rocky Road
It’s June! Summertime searches for the best ice cream have begun!
Today we’re honoring Rocky Road ice cream.* This smooth chocolate ice cream mixed with nuts & marshmallow. Is your mouth watering?
Mix up your own rocky road ice cream blend and sneak in whatever you like—we do!
Poetry Challenge #194
Make Mine Rocky Road
While on the subject of ice cream, what do you like better—soft serve or hard? What’s your favorite kind? What’s the strangest flavor you’ve seen?
For this poem, pick a flavor. Think about what ingredients are in your ice cream. Make a list of 5 or more words associated with that flavor—one word on each line. (Be sure to put the flavor first.) Use the words in your list as the first word in each line of a poem.
Here’s Cindy’s list for Rocky Road. You can use this list or make your own to write a poem:
Rocky
Road
chocolate
almond
mini
marshmallow
Hurry! You have 7 minutes before it melts!
*Why today? Because June 2nd is National Rocky Road Day. William Dreyer of Dreyer’s Ice Cream fame, is credited with blending his partner Joseph Edy’s chocolate confection of chopped nuts & marshmallow with his ice cream to create a new flavor sometime in the late 1920s. And while Americans claim the name Rocky Road was given “to bring smiles to faces during the Great Depression,” Australian’s claim it’s named for the Rocky Road gold hunters traveled. Since Australia’s version of Rocky Road candy dates back to 1863, they win. BTW: Rocky Road candy is said to have been created by George Ferrin as a way to sell confections damaged during the long trip from Europe—he mixed the broken candied fruits, marshmallows, etc with locally-grown nuts and cheap chocolate to disguise the flavour.”
George Ferrin’s “Rocky Road” would have looked like this…Yum!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #193-Happy Paper Airplane Day!
When was the last time you flew? Probably since the first soaring bird-spotting, people have been trying to fly, by fashioning wax-coated wings and turning themselves into birds and building ginormous $23 million dollar quackers like the “Spruce Goose” a troop carrier with a wingspan of 320 feet—longer than a football field—made of wood laminated with plastic and covered in fabric and designed to carry more than 700 soldiers, or in its purest form with a single sheet of paper with imagination folded in!
Poetry Challenge #193
Happy Paper Airplane Day!
Because someone needed a reason, today, May 26th, is National Paper Airplane Day. A day during which we are, each of us, honor-bound to create a paper airplane. Let’s do it!
For this prompt, shove devices aside and take up a sheet of paper. Imagine yourself folding that paper into an airplane—resist the urge to make one (for now). When its finished imagine yourself climbing aboard and soaring away!
What’s your destination? Who’s with you? What’s it feel like to fly?
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Ready! Set! Write!
When your finished, fold your poem into a paper airplane and send it into the world! Double-Dog Dare YOU!
If you need a paper airplane refresher, click on the image for step-by-steps to create the BAT X.3
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #192-Mix-Blend-Whirrrr-Slurp!
It’s National Juice Slushie Day! Yes, it really is a thing, celebrated annually on the 3rd Wednesday in May (May 18, 2021). And why not?
What do you get if you put juice and ice in a blender? A Slushie! Orange, cranberry, grape, lemon, lime, the list is open to anything you want to add. Or you could mix them up and see what you get. According to the National Day Calendar, slushies have been around as long as snow!
I hear McDonald’s has teamed up with Minute Maid to introduce a watermelon/strawberry slushie this summer. Can you say Brain Freeze?!!!
Poetry Challenge #`192
Mix-Blend-Whirrrr-Slurp!
Pick two (or three if you dare. Come on! You dare!) poems that are close to the same length. Either your own or other poet(s) poems. Now add them to the poem blender, one line at a time from each.
Read over your new poem.
Add more words (berries) if necessary to make the meaning clear. Cut words that are unnecessary. Turn on the blender and shift lines to make it even better.
Then read and enjoy your Poem Slushie aloud!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #191--Sunglasses Mandatory
Audrey Hepburn made shades chic,
Tom Cruise’s Top Gun Ray Bans made them cool,
Grandboy Bennett made them cooler . . .
Tracy Ulman’s cover of the Sunglasses Song made them camp…
Sunglasses/ooh-ooh/to hide behind
Sunglasses/ ooh-ooh /to cry behind
Sunglasses/ ooh-ooh/ die behind
Twelfth Century inventors made sunglasses of smoked glass expressly for Chinese judges to wear so no one could see where they were looking or what they were thinking.
Poetry Challenge #191
Sunglasses Mandatory
Who’s that behind those Foster Grants? asked the iconic ad campaign. Who indeed? Sunglasses—polarized, mirrored, UV protected, rose-tinted—protect us from the harsh glare of the sun, reality…and so much more.
For this prompt write a sunglasses poem riffing off the 1984 Corey Hart hit in which he sang that he wore his
sunglass as night so I can/so I can. . .
Why? When? Where do you wear those sunglasses? What can you do with them on? What happens when you take them off?
For extra credit, write one line with sunglasses on, the next with glasses off, glasses on, glasses off.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Dylan in shades, just for laughs!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #190-Lift Off!
It’s National Astronaut Day! Why May 5th? On this day in 1961, “Astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. became the first American in space aboard the Freedom 7 Space Capsule. Shepard’s “brief suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere,” came in the wake of Cosmonaut Yuri Gargain’s flight orbiting Earth (April 12, 1961). Less than three-weeks later, on May 25th, Pres. JF Kennedy challenged the US to send a man to the moon. The Space Race was on!
Eight years later on July 20th of 1969, only 12 years after Sputnik blasted off, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. And now, more than 50 years later, only 10 other men, from 3 countries, have been to the moon. 65 Women have been sent to space, and we’ve set our sights on Mars…or beyond! The only limits are our imaginations!
At least 10 Astronauts, 2 Cosmonauts & current candidates attended Space Camp as kids. Here’s more!
Poetry Challenge #190
Lift Off!
Imagine yourself an astronaut. With current technology it’s estimated that a trip to Mars would take between 5 and 8 months. What would you do? Think? Feel mid-flight? When you peered out the windows, would you look back? Or forward?
As there’s no gravity in space, it seems fitting to write in free verse. Free Verse poetry does not follow a set rhythm or rhyme scheme, but it does employ literary devices.
Prepare for Lift off!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
3-2-1-BLAST OFF!
National Astronaut Day Playlist:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #189-Leftovers Again??
In our old house what’s for dinner was never a question: Meatless Monday, Tuna Tuesday, Whatever Wednesday, Taco Thursday (yes, Tuna Noodle Casserole—don’t knock it…), Pizza Friday, Saturday and Sunday Surprise! That was then. Nowadays and since CoVid-19 struck every meal is a mystery. The only thing that’s remained is Whatever Wednesday as in Q: What’s for dinner? A: Whatever you can find. It’s our version of Leftover Night.
Thanks to my sis-in-law Valarie, who forwarded this The New Yorker article by Roz Chast, I’m realizing every house with a fridge has Leftover Night with at least 1700 different names for it. I know because Roz Chast, clever Instagramista @rozchast, took a poll. After reading through some options, I’m changing ours to Touski, the Quebecoise version of leftovers. It’s short for tout ce qui reste, “all that’s left.”
So, from this post on, Tuna Tuesday becomes Touski Tuesday for the way in sounds not because we have many leftovers on Tuesdays. With fridge pickings in mind, Touski Thursday would be better but it’s a tongue twister. And as food is the way to this writer’s soul and the sole purpose of this prompt is using up leftovers, let’s pull out our touskis (Ala Scarlet, the matter of what to do about tuna casserole will wait.)
Poetry Challenge #189
Leftovers Day aka Touski On!
The best thing about Leftovers Day (Touski Tuesday) are the strange combinations you can make into a meal.
The same goes for poems. Read through some old poems and pull out some juicy tidbits. They can be whole lines, phrases, or one special word. Combine your “leftovers” into something new.
Put 7 syllables/words onto the first line and 5 syllables/words onto the second line. Repeat this pattern for the whole poem.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just Toutski!
And, because I know you want—need it: Cheesy Tuna Noodle Casserole Recipe
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL
Poetry Challenge #188-Bulldogs Are Beautiful!
I was walking down the street the other morning (no joke) and was almost bowled over by a wrinkly, short, squatty, bowlegged creature so ugly it was cute…make that flipping adorable! His name was Hamilton, and as his proud human announced while straightening Hamilton’s cravat, “It’s his day!”
And while that was Hamilton’s day—because evidently it needed to be proclaimed— today (April 21st) is Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day!
Poetry Challenge #188
Bulldogs Are Beautiful
Think of the ugliest dog you’ve ever seen. Somebody loves that face. Somebody thinks the noises it makes are beautiful. Somebody loves the way it walks.
Write a poem from two points of view. One line from a person who thinks something (it can be a dog or something else) is beautiful and one line from a person who thinks it is the ugliest thing ever. You can make the two people speak to each other or one can speak and the other can be thinking.
Imagine the ugliest thing you can and get writing!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Get into the ugly mood with the Bulldogs Are Beautiful Playlist:
She Was Hot to Go by Lyle Lovett, if only to sing “She was ugly from the front” and call out: “You Ugly Too!”
Bob Wills’ Roly Poly sung by the Dixie Chicks: “Roly Poly, Daddy’s little fatty, fatty’s gonna be a man some day...”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 4 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl): SUBSCRIBE TO THE FISHBOWL