Michael Simms: Writing Prompt #7 | Jumping into the Mud
Here’s an exercise which I call Jumping into the Mud although it’s sometimes called by the more prosaic name automatic writing. The exercise helps to loosen my imagination, and sometimes a decent poem results as well.
Naomi Shihab Nye & Michael Simms: Writing Prompt # 6 | Dear Vaccine
As we enter our new lives
will we remember
the faster we moved
the sicker we got?
Jena Schwartz: Writing Prompt #5 | One Little Acorn
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jena Schwartz: Writing Prompt # 4 |The Book of Secrets
I find this to be such a comforting notion, that if we listen carefully, we can remember things we knew before we were born.
Beth Peyton: Writing Prompt # 3 | Rhododendrons and Kangaroos
Pick up three objects from a shelf, or a mantel, or your kitchen counter and describe them in detail. Why did you choose them? What stories do they contain?
Valerie Bacharach: Gratitude Journal
I was sure that I had failed my mother, unable to keep her in her home, as I had once promised.
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman: Writing Prompt #2 | An Imaginary Phone Call
Make an imaginary phone call to some person or thing to tell them something you never told them.
Michael Simms: Writing Prompt #1 | The Quotidian Poem
This post marks the beginning of a new irregular feature in Vox Populi. I hope readers of Vox Populi, many of whom are writers, will find the prompt helpful in stimulating their creativity.
Adrian Blevins: How I wrote The Brass Girl Brouhaha
I wrote The Brass Girl Brouhaha by tattooing the word WRONG across my heart to help me muster the strength I’d need to argue with a world that wanted me to say “hey, y’all!” in a hill-country accent sipping tea under a dogwood in a pink smock smattered with etchings of ivy.
Michael Simms: Variations on Vallejo
They killed you in Memphis on a Thursday.
On a balcony with your friends
You held your hands on the railing
And looked over the long field
Into the next life.
Vox Populi 