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Bring a Friend | Prompt

Tamara Woods 1 Comment

I grew up in the church. Now, we I say I grew up in the church, I don’t mean we were there every Sunday. I mean that my grandfather was a pastor, and we were there every Sunday…and Wednesday night, and Sunday night, and Tuesday’s for youth group, and all summer long for all three church camps offered…for 18 years.

I literally grew up in the church.

One thing I always remembered was “Bring a Friend to Church” day. Did anyone else ever have that? It was a big deal for us. Our pastor would insist on us going out and finding someone new to bring along with us.

Now, 18 years later, I’m not a religious person,  but I think there is value to bringing someone new with you to experience things you enjoy. It’s a new year and what could be better than trying something completely new, different, and hopefully, fun?

So your prompt is more of a challenge this week.

We want you to bring a friend to The Reverie.

I’m going to give you a fun wordle prompt below, and hopefully you will all find it inspiring and write something amazing for us! And then your challenge is to go find a poet you know, and bring them over. Have them tell us you sent them.

The person who refers the most poets to us, who participate in the prompt, will win themselves a guest post right here on this site. You can use it to share a new poem, to promote your own work or website, to talk about an upcoming book or publication you are working on…The possibilities are endless.

You have your challenge, guys and gals. Here’s your prompt:

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1. dizzy
2. ruins
3. dedication
4. patchwork
5. smother
6. reverence
7. raspberry
8. time
9. fierce
10. squall
11. pale
12. heavy
13. gap
14. courage

We’re giving you 14 words to use in your poem this week, but you only need to use ten at least. Use all 14 if you can! You can use any form of the word, as well. Good luck and we hope to see lots of new people this week.

Game Prompt: Voting

Tamara Woods 2 Comments

It’s been awhile since we’ve done voting on poetry, so I’m excited to see everyone coming out for their favorites. This voting is ONLY for this week. Remember to share and visit one another’s work. The poet with the highest number of votes will have their poem featured here tomorrow morning and will be entered as a submission for the upcoming magazine issue.

Our prompt this week was to use the word “game,” as the word itself or the theme of it. We had some great entries, so good luck and we’ll see you next Monday with a new prompt.

This is Long Over-Due…

Tamara Woods Leave a comment

I’ve been away.

I’ve been neglecting all responsibilities not directly connected to the swirling chaos that has become my life.

The husband lost his job.

I was up to my eyebrows in edits for my book.

I was nine months pregnant.

So…I made this:

Capture

And then took a job and hid myself away with my family to fall madly in love with this little guy. I mean, can you blame me? Look at that face!

The point is, I abandoned ship and left Tamara (probably so stressed she was cursing me mercilessly) to take over. She’s done an amazing job. In fact, she’s managed so freaking well I made the decision to step back into more of an assistant role than an editor role.

All that info aside…what does this mean for you?

It means we are behind on the magazine and there will be big changes with it. If we’ve accepted pieces from you WE STILL TO FEATURE THEM! However, the idea of two magazines and an anthology are more than can be handled at the moment.

This project has evolved and changed and we are hoping you’ll hang in there with us. We’re working hard to give you a completed project you will be proud to showcase.

Stay tuned for more info in the following weeks!

Poetry and schools | Let’s Talk About

Tamara Woods 8 Comments

When I was a kid, I loved words. I was such a book nerd that punishment was not allowing me to read books. (Cruel, so very cruel.)

I remember the first poem I’d ever written. It was one of those “I Am” poems during a summer workshop. I was amazed that I could write a poem. One that made sense and was my own. Even later on when I learned more about poetry in school, I was totally enthralled. I felt like finding hidden meaning in poems was solving a puzzle. A search a word of meaning.

However, I realize this experience is not the same for everyone. I know so many people (and I’m going to guess you do too) who say, “I hate poetry,” when I mention writing it. They are immediately turned off by the idea. They have their minds made up that poetry is as fun as having a colonoscopy.

I wonder if their experience isn’t the same, because they weren’t first introduced to poetry in a fun way. So poets and poetry enthusiast, tell me–how did you start enjoying poetry? Was it from school? Did you hate poetry in high school, but grew to love it in college? Let’s talk about it down below.

See you down in the comments!

 

Is It Always Personal? | Let’s talk about it

Tamara Woods 7 Comments

Sometimes when I write a poem it feels like I’m marching my past, present and future across the page to my reader’s eyes. Other times, the content is pulled from outside sources: the imagined relationship between two people on the bus, a particularly emotive news article, the way the trees sway in the breeze.

I would contend that even when the subject matter is totally separate from me and my experience, a bit of me still slips onto the page. She sneaks in, even when I don’t imagine her there. It may that no one else can see her. But I can.

What about you? Are you able to separate yourself from the subject matter in your poems? If you’re writing about a character, is it just that or is there a personal touchstone in your poetry? Let’s talk about it down below. .

See you down in the comments!

I Love Me, I Love Me Not

Tamara Woods Leave a comment

This weekend we’re celebrating one of those holidays people either love, or love to hate.

But in the spirit of love and romance and all those ooey-gooey feelings, I want you to write a love poem.

Hold on.

It’s not going to be that easy.

I want to challenge you to write a love poem from someone who loves you’s perspective. Did you catch that? That means a husband, girlfriend, partner, mother, grandfather, child, best friend, whoever you have in this world that loves you…You are going to write a love poem…to yourself…as if it were written by them.

Sound difficult? It is. It’s never easy to put yourself into someone else’s voice and try to write from their standpoint.

It’s even harder to write love poetry about yourself.

But I think you can do it. I KNOW you can do it.

And have you considered submitting to our Write for Us segment? We’d love to feature your work here on The Reverie! Click here for more information…

Remember, all entries must be linked back to this post with a pingback or by commenting by Friday at midnight EST. Saturday is the vote and Sunday the winner will be featured.

Photo Credit: the-psycrothic on deviantart