Poetry Challenge #207-Who Gives a Cluck?
Back when Buz and Tod were getting their kicks cruising Route 66, if their tummies growled all they had to do was look up in the sky, not at a bird or a plane, but west to the 22-foot-high Chicken Boy!
For more than 20 years, 1960-1984, Chicken Boy, a huge fiberglass statue a burly mannish “boy” with a chicken head clutching a bucket of fried chicken, “affectionately known as ‘the Statue of Liberty of Los Angeles’”, perched atop LA’s Chicken Boy restaurant. The restaurant closed after the owner died but Chicken Boy lived on—although buried deep in storage until 2007 when thanks to fundraising effort he was resurrected and re-erected in front of owner Amy Inouye’s design firm in Highland Park, CA.
Wondering if cruising to LA to see the Chicken Boy is still a thing? Bet your tail feathers it is! In 2010, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger awarded it the Governor's Historic Preservation Award.
And today, September 1st, National Chicken Boy Day, commemorates that day. Who gives a cluck? We do!
Poetry Challenge #207
What the Cluck!?
Write a Chicken Boy poem. Whether it features that 22-foot-high statue, or a boy and a chicken, or the Chicken Boys band (out of Austin, of course.)
Bwalk-blwak-blawk, just as chickens don’t all look the same—
There are hundreds of different breeds of chicken distinguished by: size, plumage color, comb type, skin color, number of toes, amount of feathering, egg color, and place of origin.[1]. . . also roughly divided by primary use, whether for eggs, meat, or ornamental purposes, and with some considered to be dual-purpose.[1]
—Chickens don’t all talk the same talk. But, no matter how its written: bwalk, cluck, peekok-peekok or some other spelling from far far away, when it comes to chicken verbalization the one universal is that hard K sound at the end.
Sooooooooo…(or should I say “sawk”). . . Think “Hard K” as you craft your poem.
And then, after you have a draft, go back over through your poem and change words, change sounds, invent words with the sole purpose of making your Chicken Boy poem sound as clucky as possible.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
And for inspiration a Chicken Boy Playlist:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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.
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Poetry Challenge #206-AS If We Need A Excuse to Split
It’s Banana Split Day! Think of that chocolate ice cream drenched in chocolate syrup, the vanilla covered with crushed pineapple, and strawberry ice cream drowning in strawberry sauce. Imagine a perfect banana, split lengthwise down the middle. Picture the swirly mounds of whipped cream on each scoop, each with a maraschino cherry cushioned on top, their candied stems like smiles. Add a sprinkling of nuts and…Yum!!!
Anyone who’s called Banana Splits addictive might be onto something. Pharmacist David Strickler ,a.k.a. Doc Strickler, the “king of the banana split” a soda jerk at Tassell Pharmacy in Latrobe, PA, concocted the first split in 1904.
Poetry Challenge #206
Make Mine a Banana Split
What ingredients do you like best on your Banana Split?
Pick two or three of your ingredients and SPLIT them into syllables. (For example banana in syllables would be ba-na-na.)
Write a line that rhymes with each of the syllables.
Between the lines, repeat the syllable as many times as you want. Make it sound as good as it tastes.
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 1900 days 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #205-Well, Since You Asked . . .
Before online ads, Insta-influencers & mail slot clogging catalogues there were Montgomery Ward, Sears, and the diamond of them all, Neiman Marcus. Long before this pandemic folks ordered everything from catalogues—and I’m not just talking undies—I mean ev-re-thing from houses to boats, gold-plated toilets and jets. Sears Home Kits were huge sellers! From 1908-1940 Sears sold about 70,000 kit homes in 48 states. They came assembly ready in 447 different design, everything included—lumber, windows, nails & plans. Unless you’re in Hawaii or Alaska, some no doubt line the streets where you live.
Best or worst “Monkey Ward”, as we called it, was first. “The very first Montgomery Ward Catalog [launched on this day, August 18th, 1872], consisted of an 8 by 12-inch single sheet of paper. On it, Ward included the merchandise for sale, price list, and ordering instructions. Before long, the Montgomery Wards single-page list of products grew into a 540 page illustrated book selling over 20,000 items.”
Poetry Challenge #205
Well, Since You Asked . . .
In honor of National Mail-Order Catalogue Day, let’s do as they/we did back in the day, and kids (of all ages) then and now can spend hours doing. Pull out a mail order catalogue, alas, as Montgomery Ward went out of business in 2001 so it can’t be that one, but any other catalogue, whether it sells plants, furnishings, tools, beauty products, or in a pinch a grocery store flyer will do.
Imagine you’ve just entered a contest and the GRAND PRIZE is a shopping spree in the catalogue of your choice. The sky’s the limit as to which or how many items you can choose. There’s only one way to win. Yep, here’s where the poetry comes in:
Write a poem about which items you chose and why you chose them. Maybe a list poem, an epistolary poem ie Dear Aaron Ward . . . or some other form. Warning: All items listed must be accompanied by at least one modifier*. (Any item without a modifier will be disqualified.)
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
*What’s a modifier? “A modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that describes something or makes its meaning more specific.”-thank you grammar-monster.com.
And, for your cruising-the-neighborhood pleasure: How To Identify a Sears Kit Home.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #204-Joke's on You Mr. President
Presidents are people too, and they have funny stories, facts, and quirks just like other people you might know. Listed below are a few websites with…interesting…facts/stories about the presidents.
Scene from President Taft is Stuck in the Bath by Mac Barnett & Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick Press)
Poetry Challenge #204
The Joke’s on You Mr. President
When you’re finished yukking it up, let’s Take 7 to commemorate National Presidential Joke Day (Aug 11th). Choose one Presidential fact or story and write a poem about it. Write your poem in couplets (two lines that rhyme) with lines of the same length.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
For fun, memorize your poem and recite it at dinner!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #203-Semper Paratus
Today, August 4, 2021, National Coast Guard Day, marks the 232nd birthday of the Coast Guard, the first national branch of the US Military, established by President George Washington in 1790. The Coast Guard provides sea search and rescue, protect our shores and waterways—including saving an estimated 24,000 people at sea. In Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard rescued about 33,500 people.
And…remember the movie The Perfect Storm, book by Sebastian Junger? Dah duh-da-duh da-duh! Coast Guard to the rescue (along with, I’m proud to report, Sea-Air Rescue SAR team from Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach, NY.) Semper Paratus!
Poetry Challenge #203
Semper Paratus
Semper Paratus, the Coast Guard official motto means “Always Ready.” Let that be the title of today’s poem, “Always Ready.”
But for what? And how?—no need to limit your imagination—and, who’s always ready? Is it you . . .or?
But-but-but…before you begin, regardless of the subject of your poem, let’s add a splash of Coast Guard spirit by including words from “Sea Legs, the Coast Guard Glossary” and more:
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Ahoy mates! What’s a celebration without a rousing rendition of the Coast Guard Anthem? & a Coast Guard movie?! Semper Paratus!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #202-Got Milk... Chocolate?
When was the last time you reached into a fridge and chugged chocolate milk? Or savored a chunk of chocolate. If, like me, it’s been too long (more than 24 hours) It’s time! Today, July 28th is National Milk Chocolate Day ! (If you missed it consider this your rain check.)
The first use of the term milk chocolate dates back to 1687 when a beverage made from milk and chocolate was introduced to the people of London. While the first chocolate bar was created in 1847, it was dark chocolate. The first milk chocolate bar appeared in 1875 in Switzerland which quickly became known for making the best chocolates. By 1900, chocolate was universal.
Poetry Challenge #202
Got Milk . . . Chocolate, that is!
What is your favorite chocolate treat?* A specific candy bar? Chocolate cake? Hot fudge?
Describe it in great detail. What does it look like? Taste like? Feel like? How does it make you feel?
Try using similes or metaphors--______ is like ___________.
Make your reader’s mouth water. Make them want your chocolate treat.
(If you really truly deeply…madly don’t like chocolate, poem a treat you do you like.)
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
I’m off to the kitchen—store—to find…Chocolate!!!
Serious Chocoholics take the Chocolate Challenge: Cadbury vs. Hershey’s vs. Dove vs. Godiva. Then click to insider.com to see how your results match up.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 5 years ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. This is INCREDIBLE NUMBER 201! 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #201-If Billy Can, Then I Can too!
Hey, if Billy Can do it…
Today, in case you need an excuse—or permission—is National Junk Food Day (July 21st). However…contrary to what the good child in you is thinking, this is not a day set aside to “raise awareness” of junk food so we’ll stop eating so much.
Absolutely not! Much perhaps, to Michael Jacobsen’s chagrin. This day, and every July 21st, is unabashedly set aside for the sole purpose of cramming as much junk food into our already junk-filled bodies as we possibly can.
Chips! Soda! Candy-candy-candy here I come!
Poetry Challenge #201
If Billy Can, So Can We!
Billy Collins is a thief! Yes, the former U.S Poet Laureate freely and openly admits that he steals poem by taking the first two lines of someone else’s poem and “rewrite it for them.” So while we’re gleefully breaking all the nutrition laws by indulging in “junk porn” (another of Jacobsen’s terms), let’s add theft to our list of crimes.
For “Litany,” a love poem of metaphors comparing the person of affection with food and more, Billy Collins stole the first two lines of Jacques Crickillon’s untitled poem:
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
For our poem let’s spatter, smother, cover Litany with junk food metaphors. But rather than leaving those first lines intact as Collins did, let’s follow Maria’s advice from The Sound of Music. Let the junk feast begin at “the very best place to start” The Beginning! Fill in the blanks and then slather it on:
You are the ___________ and the ___________
The _______________ and the ____________
. . . and so on and so forth . . .
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Now that you’re cravings for junk food are sated—or maybe while indulging—treat yourself to Billy Collins reading “Litany”!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. This is INCREDIBLE NUMBER 201! 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #200-Mac & Cheese, Please!
What’s for lunch? Dinner? Breakfast? Dessert? Of all days, today, July 14th, there’s only one right answer:
Mac & Cheese please!
Today, July 14th, National Macaroni and Cheese Day is about the melding of two ooey-gooey favorites: pasta and cheese. What’s more, it’s also National Nude Day and Bastille Day—imagine that 3-way mash up . . . hmmmm . . . Viva La France! . . . moving on . . .
Naked Bike Ride pre-Cape Town Argus. Disclaimer: we did not participate
Poetry Challenge #200
Mac and Cheese, Please!
Macaroni and Cheese go together much better than Macaroni and Peas. Or Macaroni and Knees. Maybe Macaroni makes you…sneeze? wheeze? Oh, please!!!
Today, write a silly poem about two things that go together—with a twist. Change one thing. Make your poem rhyme in silly ways. Make up words if you need to.
You can choose your own pair of things that go together or use one from the list below.
salt & pepper bread & butter
peanut butter & jelly pen & pencil
bacon & eggs hammer & nail
batman & robin needle & thread
shoes & socks sugar & spice
Or try the July 14th 3 -way mash up of Bastille Day & Nude Day & Mac-n-Cheese!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
When you’re finished, treat yourself: Mac & Cheese Ice Cream anyone??
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1900 days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. This is INCREDIBLE NUMBER 200! 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
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .