Poetry Challenge #215-Meow! Scat! Hiss!
Meow! Scat! Hiss!
Don’t let a black cat cross your path. But to avoid one you’ve got to see it coming, so beware, it’s Black Cat Day! Or maybe hurrah!
In some parts of the world, Scotland, England, parts of Asia, black cats are welcomed. A white hair resting on a black cat is a portent of good luck. In Scotland, a black cat on your porch is a sign of imminent prosperity for the owner, according to a Scottish tradition and a black cat walking in your direction is also thought to bring good fortune. In my house, a black cat means sneezes and wheezes. . . great for tissue sales.
How did black cats get a bad rap? (Say that 5 times quickly.) Here’s a timeline from NationalToday.com
Poetry Challenge #215
Meow! Scat! Hiss! . . . Hello!
Whether fearsome or harbinger of fortune, imagine yourself a black cat.
Write a Monostitch poem from the point-of-view of your black cat. But…DO NOT USE the words “black” or “cat” in your poem.
A monostich is a one-line poem that expresses a complete thought. Often the title of a monostitch works with the text to “create a poem in the space between.” (Thanks Writer’s Digest for this and more.)
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it! MEOW!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 2000 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #214-LIving the YES!
Happy Youth Confidence Day!
Are you sure?
Poetry Challenge #214
Living the YES!
What does it mean to be confident?
Write an acrostic poem with a recipe for being or becoming confident.
Use the word Confidence or Confident and put one letter on each line going down.
Use that letter to start the word for each line.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it . . .
You can do this! You’re amazing!
A bunch of confidant kids—living the YES!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000 days ago! (Yep two thousand 0-0-0H!) 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #213-One Grey Matter Shake Coming Up!
You can train your dog. You can train your car. But, can you train your dog to sit in your car on the train?
Think about it . . .
Hurrah! The work-out has begun!
Today, October 13, is Exercise Your Brain Day. Because, when it comes to your brain, it’s use it or lose it. Research has proven that doing routine things—same ole’-same ole’ does not exercise our brains. And just like the rest of us, without exercise, our brains get flabby.
Here are a few suggestions for ways shake up the grey stuff:
Poetry Challenge #213
One Grey Matter Shake Coming Up!
For today’s prompt, let’s exercise our brains by writing a poem that is also a riddle.
Latex on!
Pens up!
Timer set! GO!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #212 Mad As a Hatter
Mad as a hatter? Join the crowd for today is officially Mad Hatter’s Day!
Mad Hatters were well-known in the 1800’s. (Lewis Carroll didn’t create them . . . neither did Johnny Depp or Ed Wynn.)
Hatters—the people who made hats—haberdashers—often used mercury in the process. People who came into contact with mercury often ended up with many strange symptoms: shaking, mood swings, unpredictable behavior, and hallucinations. The saying “mad as a hatter” came to describe those strange behaviors. Characters appeared in books—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—or in comics illustrating these unpredictable behaviors.
Poetry Challenge #212
Mad As a Hatter
But what if your hat was mad? Why might it be mad? Is it dirty? Wet? Too hot? Tired of sitting on your head?
Write a personification poem from the point of view of a mad hat.
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 1990+ 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #211-Coffee? Tea? Or...
Coffee?
Latte? Americano? Cappuccino? Cold Brew? Espresso?
Why not? After all, it is National Coffee Day (Sept 29). While we’re on the subject:
Lore has it that in the 17th century, one Baba Budan, a Sufi Saint/Monk/Tourist, made the pilgrimage from India to Mecca, and while visiting the Yemen port city of Mocha, was served a drink called “Quahwa” which wowed him. So, even though it was illegal to take green coffee seeds from Arabia, Baba Budan hid 7 green coffee seeds in his beard and smuggled them back home to Mysore. He planted them, they grew, he shared the quahwa with friends, they grew some too, thus bringing coffee to India. Put that in your coffee mill and grind it!
Or… maybe, after all that, you prefer Tea?
Darjeeling, Earl Gray, English Breakfast, chamomile, mint?
or Hot Chocolate?
Raspberry? Mexican? with whipped cream? marshmallows? Fluff?
Rumor has it Starbucks Pumpkin Spice is back!
Poetry Challenge #211
Coffee? Tea? Or . . . What’s Your Pleasure?
Whatever you like to drink, it’s time to make up a new flavor. Write a poem about this flavor and give it a great name. Make us see it, smell it, taste it, and WANT it.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Once you've finished your poem, treat yourself to a cup of your creation and a movie. Here’s more about Baba Budan courtesy of Akara Coffee.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #210-Engines Off!
Hide those car keys! Engines Off! Today is World Car Free Day.
Ever wonder why cars are also called “autos”? I’m thinking it’s to bless or blame one guy, Nicolaus Otto, who in 1876 “invented an effective gas motor engine.” Daimler and Benz may have built cars before him, but Otto’s 4-stroke internal combustion engine called the “Otto Cycle Engine” is what made the wheels go around…and around and around and around…
January 29, 1886 Benz was granted the first automobile patent.
…Which seemed to make everyone, especially the oil & gas industry, very happy. Until sometime in the 50s, when some folks poked their heads out of the exhaust fumes and realized that cars were changing our cities, neighborhoods, lives. According to the National Day Calendar website, “from 1956 to 1957, the Netherlands and Belgium held car-free Sundays.” On September 22, 2000, the European Car Free Day was held. It has since been an annual event for 46 countries and 2,000 cities all over the world—and now, here!
Poetry Challenge #210
Engines Off!
Take a moment to silence those noisy engines—if only in your mind—and imagine a day without cars. Any cars on the road, or buses, motorcycles, lawnmowers, too. What would you do? What sounds could you hear that you don’t usually? Where might you go and how would you get there?
If you can agree that the world—for this one car-free day—would be a quieter and probably slower place, challenge yourself to use quieter and slower sounding words.
“Quieter” words are those without hard-sounding endings: the hard K,G,T consonants.
“Slower words often have repeated vowel sounds and repeated soft consonants: double s, double m or n sounds.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Awwway weeeeee goooooooo!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #209-Earth First
Think: Green
Think: Peace
Today, because it’s National Green Peace Day. But not just today. Think Earth First because it’s time. It’s long past time!
We can change and make changes to help our world.
AND because, if we consciously think “Earth” before we do whatever it is we have to do: before we go; before we toss; before we buy; before. . . before we ignore, we can change and make changes to help our world.
Poetry Challenge #209
Green Peace
There’s nothing quite like the color green, and everyone wants peace. For this poem, Today, think of as many words that can rhyme with green or peace and use them in a poem.
For an extra challenge, do not let the last words in lines rhyme.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
Think Green Peace
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1990+ 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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #208-Amp It Up!
The instant I learned there was such a thing as National Ampersand Day, Joni Mitchell’s song “Twisted” popped into my head:
& he thought I was nuts/No more ifs or & or buts, oh no!/They say as a child I appeared a little bit wild with all my crazy ideas/but I knew what was a jean-yuus . . .
But then I thought, why not? After all doesn’t it seem right & fitting to set aside time to celebrate a symbol that dates back more than 2,000 years; & was once the last letter of the English alphabet (before Z took its place);& stands for the latin word et, “and” in English as in the word etcetera; &is derived from an alteration of “and per se and,” meaning (i.e. ‘&’); & is arguably the most used lologram* in the English language? & so, without further ado:
Poetry Challenge #208
AMP IT UP
Let’s use these “how to celebrate ampersand day” suggestions to revise a poem.
#1 Select a poem to revise
Now: AMPersand IT UP…rather in the spirit of the day…& IT UP!
#2 Substitute an ampersand “& “ for every “and” in the poem.
#3 Throughout the poem, replace the “and” sound with an ampersand. For example: change Andrea to &rea; Alexander to Alex&er, Grandma to Gr&ma; etc. & so forth.
#4 If your poem doesn’t have enough ampersands to make it interesting—or &y at all—change & add words until it looks more interesting.
#5 If you dare, send your revised poem to a friend for decoding.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it! & Have Fun!
*A logogram is a character that represents a word or phrase commonly used in shorthand. Other lolograms include @, #, $, %… & numbers such as 4 . . . LOL (yep LOL is a lologram too, lol!)
& BTW: Amersand Day was declared “in 2015 by Chaz DeSimone, an author, designer, typographer & founder of AmperArt an initiative which considers the ampersand to be an art form.”
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):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .