30 Poetry Prompts To Get Inspired During National Poetry Month

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April is National Poetry Month and if you’re looking for a way to connect with your emotions, unlock vulnerability, and process through some of the big feelings that we are all undoubtedly feeling these days, poetry is a great way to do so. Poetry can feel intimidating to a lot of people because of how visceral it is, and it doesn’t help that a lot of the poetry we are introduced to in school is written by old, white men and can often feel inaccessible.

Or, maybe you just have no idea what the poetry format even is. Luckily, there’s not a lot of rules in poetry; it’s actually really easy to get started writing poetry as a beginner. With some exploring of contemporary poets and a few poetry prompts, those creative juices will be flowing and you’ll be writing a poem in no time.

30 Prompts To Help You Start Writing Poems

Prompt #1: 

Pick one thing in life you wish you could undo or pick something that haunts you. Consider the thing you have lost and where it was missing in your life. Then, write a poem backward in time until the lost thing is no longer lost.

Prompt #2:

List places where you feel comforted, things that make you feel taken care of, and things you do to take care of yourself. Then, imagine someone asks you to give them a recipe for how you want to be taken care of. Write a poem in the form of a recipe where you list ingredients that make up the ways you want to be nourished. 

Prompt #3:

Write an ode to the ugliest thing you know. Or write an ode to something that you love that others may not. Consider writing an ode to the parts of yourself that you may have named ugly. Rewrite them all in a new light.

Prompt #4:

Consider a moment when you had to confront something about yourself or someone else. Zoom in on that moment, re-enter it through this poem, and bring things that were not allowed into the room. Who or what do you wish could have been there? Do you wish the setting could have changed? 

Prompt #5:

Imagine you are at the end of your life. Write a poem about all of your little victories.

Prompt #6:

Think of a time when you needed protection but didn’t receive it. Write a poem to that part of you. What would you say? What did that part of you need to hear? What did they need someone to do? Be specific.

Prompt #7:

Write a poem in which a song is the centerpiece. Bonus: make the title of the poem the title of the song. 

Prompt #8:

Consider the five senses: smell, touch, sight, taste, and hearing. Write a letter to someone you love, including a detail about every sense in your poem.

Prompt #9:

Write a poem where you zoom into a seemingly insignificant moment of your day, week, or year. Pull out the details and make that moment significant.

Prompt #10:

Write a “to-feel” list. Now, write a poem in which you honor those feelings or write a poem about the steps you need to take in order to make space for those feelings.

Prompt #11:

Write a poem in which two things are true at the same time. Bonus if they are conflicting truths. Allow the nuance to breathe. 

Prompt #12:

Imagine that you are a visitor from another time period and you just landed in modern-day America. What would your prayer or wish for the people be?

Prompt #13:

Make a list of times you have hurt someone you love. Write a poem where you imagine what they went through to arrive at forgiveness. In the poem, also explore how you will carry their pain alongside them until it is resolved.

Prompt #14:

Imagine your inner child and step into their experience. Write a poem from this place to your adult self, explaining what you need. 

Prompt #15:

Do you ever take those Buzzfeed quizzes that tell you what character you are from your favorite show or what kind of snack you are? Write a poem that functions like one of those quizzes. It can be about any subject you’d like!

Prompt #16:

Write a list of different physical spaces that are near you. Then, write a list of memories that exist in those spaces. Finish by writing a poem where you explore one of the memories through sensory details. Be as vivid as possible.

Prompt #17:

Write a poem about your relationship to nourishment. This does not have to be physical nourishment. (But of course, it can be.)

Prompt #18:

If it’s not broke, break it. Find a piece of writing that you love. This can be a poem you already know, a piece of prose, anything. Paste that piece of writing into a document and start breaking it. Rearrange the lines, add lines of your own in a different color, reimagine the piece completely. Then, add the lines you added into a separate document and see if that is its own poem. If it’s not, fix it. Make sure to credit the author of the original writing in this exercise.

Prompt #19: 

Write a poem with the first line, “I’m sorry,” and use it two more times before you end the poem.

Prompt #20:

Write a poem about standing up to your worst fear. 

Prompt #21:

Has someone ever told you that you are too much? Or that you’re not enough? Write a poem about being exactly the right amount. 

Prompt #22:

Make a list of parts of your body that you have been told not to love. Write a poem in which you spend time with one or all of those parts. 

Prompt #23:

Write a poem about a piece of advice you wish someone would have given you in a moment of pain. 

Prompt #24:

Write a poem in which you imagine a world of abundance. Write about what the world looks like. Write from your own point of view and experiences.

Prompt #25:

Write about something you are looking forward to.

Prompt #26:

Write a poem in which everything turns out okay. This can mean whatever you need it to.

Prompt #27:

Write a poem where you cast a spell on your past self. What intention do you set for them?

Prompt #28:

Write a poem in which one part of your body is talking to another. 

Prompt #29:

Make a list of times where you were faced with a decision. Write a poem where you imagine what would have happened had you gone down the other path.

Prompt #30:

Experiment with visual poetry. Pick an image that you want to write a poem about. This could be a roof, a knife, a pen, something in nature. Write a poem about that object in the shape of that object. Play around on the page and keep it as simple as you need it to be.