Earlier this summer, we introduced a free 5-prompt mini-series based on Tania Runyan’s How to Write a Poem, part of the Field Guide Series from T.S. Poetry Press.
Subscribers get a daily poetry prompt over a five-say stretch which includes an invitation to share the poems written out of the prompts. Many of those poems have been shared with us, and now we’re sharing 10 of our favorites with you. (You’ll notice that there are common lines that appear in different poems; this is part of the prompt.)
1.
One must have a mind of stars
to glint and shine and light the dark
or line a sunlit purple sky
and glitter through a lingering sigh
One must have a mind of pearl
to hear the sound of shells unfurl
or paint the sand with marble lines
and read the needles on the pines
One must have a mind of coal
to spark a fire in their soul
or stand against the gaining crowd
and know their heart and speak it loud
2.
One must have the mind of a sunset
fire in the sky spread across the city
lighting the great conurbation in black silhouette.
Ribbons of commuters threading streets
office girls in tabasco and vermillion
too high heels sashaying home.
The sinking hearts of those crammed down
into the subway
the old watch the sideshow of youth.
Fading Plane trees
bristling with rust
apocalyptic light at the end of the day.
— Tina Cole
3. how to find perth canyon
one must have a mind of
air to travel down there
, 10K years beneath the
sea where they ask the
question: how many gallons
does it take to fill a hole in the
ocean
one must have a mind of
water if one wishes to fin
& saunter: oxygenate aorta
as coral quarrels about how
deep it can reef. leviathan’s
sleep this far down: bloop
sound
one must have a mind of
topographical lines if one
hopes to find any sing of
perth canyon: descend &
around lungs let air bend
, into water upend & swim
down
one must have a mind of
fishiness: if you believe in
this grow scales & abseil
current’s tale, take in big
breaths, swim great depths
sail as if you own a whale’s
tail
one must have a mind of
water tables to deluge be
-neath water tables: darken
light, let bioluminescence
ignite, see with sonar sight
how pressure holds tight. give
in
4. Losing the North
I lost your Licuala fan palm once seen everywhere
unless I found it in a special garden collecting
palms from every land and then
I lost your rhythm of heavy rain falling
again and again until the garden was
a lake and the day off work –
that might bring to family rained in
some respite from the demands of everyday life
to just sit and be family in song.
I lost that feeling of catching your
sun rise above the ocean if I felt so inclined or
sunrises above the cane
-across the road
I saw an ibis on a rooftop,
wondered if she dreamed herself with you.
A baby butcher bird adopted my family by the clothesline
sang to them life’s mysteries of
the lost and found.
5. Drafty
One must have the mind of wind
to wind along a line as thin as whispers
between night breezes, a mind that stops
and drops into caverns, or picks up to whistle
you back home from where you lost
your long trail of words in a tornado
thick with tangled thoughts. To chase
cyclones, see into the being of chinooks—
mind you—that is the mind’s whiff and whisk,
flutter and flurry, blast and blow. The zephyr
of sentences in a puff of poem:
the blessed drafts that makes the mind go.
6. The Sandman’s Soliloquy
(after Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man”)
One must have a mind of sleep
if she is to know dreams –
accept the rendering of temporary dark,
eyes dipped in ether, turned upward
to the mysterious afterlife
from which we all return at morning.
One must give up fear of rest,
the full stop and lying down
with silent feet and fingers pointed
toward Sartre’s being and nothingness.
Let the burden of restless thoughts
be bound in an ancient holy book,
housed for a season in yesterday’s
dimly lit vault, where still
it fades, brought out to read in the Divine
office of the waking soul at distant
appointed hours —
Let present hours be dealt like moon
cards, a rummy of night royalty, counted
and played in no particular order
on the mind’s rented table,
all the players wearing dark glasses
to hide their secrets.
7.
One must have a mind of glass
Hot moulded, flowing slow
Host of pure cool water
Refractive, and
Indistinguishable
In its transparency
Found deep in earth
And on strange, distant moons
Knowing of time
It will not last
Shattered and reformed
Anew.
— Paul Walker
8. Seeing Stones
One must have a mind of stone
journey deep into an ancient world
when home was a red-hot globe of gas
Not yet cooled into seven continents with
splinters of slate, jade and tourmaline
boulders scattered or hidden beneath caves
Man had not yet shaped these bits into
tools to slash the hearts of wildebeest
or form finery along the neck of queens
Now I sit for hours upon the beach
collecting pebbles shaped like hearts
sifting thru sand as if it didn’t matter
Not knowing that all the tiny sacred bits
are rocks too if I would only see each for
its color, texture, pattern, significance
9. Pressed
red brick bindery
bronzing the dyeline,
burst perfect bind,
grain long
pages creep,
halo, ghosting,
red ink bleeds
10.
One must have a mind of forests
branches creaking with the wind
song of long forgotten ones
that fell
to be covered by shades of green, rich and velvet
tasted by the eyes
cupped in bowl like hands then
sung for future dreams.
Light sneaks in from the sky
melodies to streak across the
pathway below
through the gaps of green
lines of warmth
awakening the green.
I look to the leaves
dancing velvet canticles
praise to the sky.
Want to try? Click to get your invitation to our 5-day mini-series and share your poems with us.
Photo by Nick Amoscato, Creative Commons license via Flickr.
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Marjorie Maddox says
Glad to be here! Thanks for the prompts, Tania!
Matthew Kreider says
These are great. I love hearing the voices. 🙂
Katie says
Really enjoyed these – especially #1, #5 and #10!
Donna Falcone says
Oh, what a fun post, and these poems are great!
So much to love!