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Poet Laureate Poem Prompts

A poet prompt may take you in many directions, depending upon what draws your eye or hooks you--is it a line or phrase, a story, a particular form, a feeling? Everyone will have a response unique to his/her own life experiences and attention to craft. Be yourself!

After the poet laureate bio and poem prompts on these pages, you will sometimes find the editor's response. You can see how her mind works around and into a mentor poem and what she has taken away from the experience to bring to her own work.

In Sommerlicht Schwebend–Claudia Castro Luna

Our marriage began
the two of us on a carousel
young and lost and spinning
to the pretty music, sitting on griffins and dragons
with wooden wings and static claws

Once he introduced me to an older colleague
“Meine Verlobte,” he said
the old man took my hand with reverence to his lips
and my husband smiled in that way of his–
back and forth between us, love,
a champagne fueled badminton birdie
flying higher and higher on late summer nights

the faster the merry-go-round
the more he liked to stay on it
the same piped in music
screaming inside his head
melancholy and melody wrung out of it
like water from a dirty mop

the day the carousel spun too fast for me
he was busy spinning inane tales of power
stories of winning after losing
jobs and so many other things
I let go of the drop rod, hurdled across the Atlantic
orbit-less, like a comet without a tail

He spun on, bottle after bottle
drag after drag, year after year
chiming beer under the canopy’s striped firmament
he stayed alone with his addiction
with only the chipped menagerie to lean on

I hope his last ride was superlative and fast
a deep maze of flamboyant fantasies
wind flapping shirt and pant leg
“Look how my slip on shoes don’t fall!”
he would have shouted at my ghost twirling next to him
and breaking into his toothy smile, the gap in the middle
a channel for the dove inside him to fly through

 

This poem was previously published in Psychological Perspectives.

How Often Have I Walked Through My Front Door–Rachel Barton

felt the tension slip from my shoulders
like the paisley piano scarf from the curve of a grand
the pressure on my temples like calipers
two padded hammers’ prolonged strike–sostenuto
until I step over–pianissimo
the thick-felted threshold

though the clipped action of the outer world dances
in a jig a frolic rondo or barcarolle
persuades like the carousel’s calliope and mirrors
the delight of a quick jaunt in a sparkling swirl of notes and timbres
the minute soundboards of my ears’ drums
tire quickly signal retreat

I step into quiet when I open my door
the orchestra of a suitably rowdy life
fades into the walls
clocks tick faucets drip furnace hums
and the warm body of dog dreams
in soft whimpers on the couch beside me

 

The title of this poem is after Sherman Alexie.

About Featured Poet Laureate Joanne Townsend

Joanne Townsend grew up in Boston where after learning the importance of public libraries, public transportation, and voting Democratic, she began writing poetry. Adventure took her to Alaska before there was a pipeline. She lived in Anchorage, Alaska from 1970 to 1995 where it was her honor to serve as Alaska State Poet Laureate officially from 1988-1992 and unofficially at the request of the Alaska State Council for two more years until the appointment of Tom Sexton. In December 2005 she moved to Las Cruces, NM,

Her 24 poem collection Following the Trails appeared as an internal chapbook in Minotaur 55 (Minotaur Press 2009) She is currently working with 2 co-editors in judging poetry for Sin Fronteras: Writers without Borders 2018.

This bio was compiled from the Zingara and Sin Fronteras websites, with thanks.

Somewhere Near Odessa, 1900–Joanne Townsend

In the low light by the river
my grandparents, so young,
stand in shabby coats and worn shoes.
The bridge casts violet shadows on their fear,
on the pine trees and frigid cold,
the black rage of Russia
an underlying hiss.
He knows he will leave,
the spoken goodbyes harder than hunger,
the thirst deep in him.
He will work and save,
send for her and the children.
He sees her tears and turns away,
his restless mind already in flight,
his feet tapping, tracks
that will fade to memory.

On the way to America,
those cold damp nights on the Rotterdam,
he hears the fading colors of their voices,
diminishing wave lengths, the tossing ship
and the shock of the lonely dark.

 

This poem was first published in Zingara and has been reprinted with permission from Zingara and from the author.

About featured Writer Laureate Peggy Shumaker

photo credit: Barry McWayne

Peggy Shumaker is the daughter of two deserts—the Sonoran desert where she grew up and the subarctic desert of interior Alaska where she lives now.  Shumaker was honored by the Rasmuson Foundation as its Distinguished Artist.  She served as Alaska State Writer Laureate. She received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Shumaker is the author of eight books of poetry, including Cairn, her new and selected volume. Her lyrical memoir is Just Breathe Normally. Professor emerita from University of Alaska Fairbanks, Shumaker teaches in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA at PLU. She serves on the Advisory Board for Storyknife, and on the board of the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation. Shumaker is editor of the Boreal Books series (an imprint of Red Hen Press), editor of the Alaska Literary Series at University of Alaska Press, poetry editor of Persimmon Tree, and contributing editor for Alaska Quarterly Review.

For more information on Shumaker’s background, please see her website, which is also the source of this short bio.

It might interest our readers to know that Peggy Shumaker collaborated with Willawaw’s first cover artist, Kesler Woodward. His images and her words are documented in the book, Blaze.

Parenthood, Unplanned–Peggy Shumaker

When a jasmine-scented
teenager (not yet my mother)

came up pregnant
with me, my father

stepped up.
They did what teenagers did

in 1951.  Married.
Mismatched

spectacularly–
fifteen years of yelling and beer.

Four kids and two
miscarriages

before she turned
twenty-four.

No education
past high school.

So after the divorce,
crap jobs,

crappier men,
government cheese,

no sleep.
Haunted, her eyes.

There are men
making decisions

right now
about lives of girls

and women.
Some do not want

children to know
how their bodies work.

Some do not trust
women to make

decisions.  As if
women were people,

as if women
know what’s best

for their lives,
for the lives

of their children.
That broken teen

who carried me, who
pushed me out

into this world,
that brilliant

ragged girl
died young, worn down

in her thirties.
One small life,

I know.  The only life
she had.  I speak for her

when I say
Let women live.

Let women be.

 

This poem was first published in Cutthroat:  Truth to Power Special Issue and also opens Shumaker’s latest collection, Cairn. 

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