Can you tell the difference between mirror and mirage? Do you follow false reflections or true? This week, we’re exploring the poetry in mirages.
Writing Prompts Galore
A delicious selection of writing prompts—from poetry prompts to fiction prompts and more.
Write along with our community. (We love that.)
Maybe get featured.
(We ask your permission, if we'd like to feature you in Every Day Poems!)
Realities Reflected (A Poetry Prompt)
The slanted, off-kilter fun-house bedroom emptied into a narrow a corridor, a hallway with mirrored walls. The lights were bright, fluorescent lit, and gave the general impression of being trapped inside that Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon. My three boys and I stopped, noticed the hundreds of us-es that seemed to stretch around slight reflective […]
Mirror, Mirror (A Poetry Prompt)
Seth Haines starts out our June Mirror, Mirror theme with a musical reflection — our June poetry prompt playlist of mirror tunes.
The Opalescent Swallow (A Poetry Prompt)
Join Seth Haines for a new poetry prompt on the swallow, from this month’s Swan, Swallow, the Phoenix theme.
3 Star Trek Poems: Into Darkness
In honor of the 2013 Trekkies high holy day (the debut of the new movie Into Darkness, opens May 16th), we’re featuring Star Trek poems.
Fiction Friday (on Wednesday): Star Trek Encounter
Writing short fiction is a marvelous playground for the poet to develop the essential ingredients of great poems. Try your hand at our “encounter” prompt today.
Diary: A Christmas Truce
More often than not, it seems, fiction arises out of real events. In this short piece by 13-year-old Sonia Joie, we find the fictional diary entry that could just as well have been written by an actual soldier in the field one day back in 1914.
Swans, Swallows, and the Phoenix (A Poetry Prompt)
Seth Haines kicks off the month of May with a new poetic playlist on our Swans, Swallow, Phoenix theme, and a brand new poetry prompt to boot.
Night at the Classroom (A Poetry Prompt)
Making Grendel from paper mâché? Perhaps you’d rather just write a creature poem. Seth Haines has a new poetry prompt from literature’s greatest creatures.
National Poetry Month: poemcrazy: Open the Window
Poems and dreams gather fragments of our days and piece them back together in whimsical, even frightening ways. Join us for our latest ‘poemcrazy’ discussion.
Custard the Cowardly Dragon (A Poetry Prompt)
A Tweetspeak poetry prompt involving Ogden Nash, Custard the cowardly dragon, and light verse.
Frumious Nonsense & Jabberwock Thoughts (A Poetry Prompt)
Seth Haines spins a ferocious new poetry prompt from the nonsense words of Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky.’
National Poetry Month: Phone Poets Project
Tweetspeak is teaming up with Patty Paine, of Diode Poetry Journal, to jumpstart a Phone Poets Project for National Poetry Month.
The Collaborative Pantoum (A Writing Prompt)
The pantoum is a metaphor, an artistic expression of cooperation, and the perfect poetic medium for artistic collaboration. Seth Haines invites you to join with other poets in a collaborative pantoum in the comments.
Freedom In Structure: The Pantoum (A Writing Prompt)
Poetic forms can bring an explorative freedom to the poet. Seth Haines explores the pantoum form, and offers a writing prompt.
Personal Pantoum Fest (A Poetry Prompt)
Seth Haines tried his hand at this month’s theme. Writing a pantoum was an exercise in discipline, sticking to the strictures of a poetry form. And like it or not, the poetic form assisted in maintaining and conveying the chaotic sense of the story.
Flash Fiction Friday: The Breaking
With nothing more to go on than our February “purple” theme, Darrelyn Saloom writes a heart-stopping piece of flash fiction.
Purple Plays (An Associative Poetry Prompt)
Men have long lusted after the cherry-red Porsche, or the ruby-red lips of their lovers. The perfect little black dress is the staple of the refined lady’s closet. Children have long dreaded the color “school-bus yellow.” What objects do you most associate with colors purple and indigo? What emotional states do the colors bring to mind? Seth Haines has a new poetry prompt.
Poetry at Work: The Best Job You Ever Had
It was only when I started writing poems that I began to understand that good and bad jobs, and best and worst jobs, often walk hand in hand.
Battle of the Beverages (Another Coffee Poetry Prompt)
The beverage wars are on. This week’s poetry prompt pits coffee against soft drinks (or any other drink, really) in a duel to the death.