The prompt from NaPoWriMo today has many steps. The beginning instructions are below, and you can click on the link to get the details.
This may remind you a bit of the “New York School” recipe, but this prompt has been around for a long time. I remember using it in a college poetry class, and loving the result. It really forces you into details, and to work on “conducting” the poem as it grows, instead of trying to force the poem to be one thing or another in particular. The prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. And here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem...*
ALBATROSS OF THE CITY
by Dot
When it rains it pours
As in salt as in tears as in troubles
As in water plain pure and simple
Falling from the sky and
drenching
Walkers runners bikers caught off
guard
Who sputter and spurt and curse
toward
Heaven god goddess earth mother
gate keeper.
‘O, mio dio,’ D said as she
scurried
Toward the open door at the end
of the road
Which was waving her forward
Toward the lonely albatross of
the city where
The hidden and the unwanted sleep
And the ignored cried in unison about
Injustice and basic human needs
and
Dignity rights hunger happiness
poverty smiles.
D hurried onward with the taste
of hollowness
On her tongue slipping down her
throat
Listening to creeping salamanders
under her feet
Stir in crimson waves of tart mud
flows
And she listens to the heartbeat
of the many
Out of sight beyond the banging
door
Out of knowledge of that one
percent
Who live on the big white hills
Inside gates to keep people out
And prevent overpopulation and
diminishing
Of their possessions which are
many
Which are vast which multiply on
the backs
Of those below but soon the hills
will run brown
And yellow black blue red and
purple
And the white coated lives will
wonder
What happened.
As D approaches the door the
voices quiet
The door holds still and the rain
Continues to pour liquid damp
wild
On the bicycle the running shoes
the bare feet
The tire tracks marking the mud.
*
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