In his poem, “Poet, No Thanks,” Jean D’Amérique repeats the phrase “I wasn’t a poet” multiple times, while describing other things that he instead claims to have been. In your poem for today, use a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.
In her poem, “Front Yard Rhyme,” Cecily Parks evokes the sing-songy beats that accompany girls’ clapping games, and jump-rope and skipping rhymes. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that emulates these songs – something to snap, clap, and jump around to.
Thank you for visiting, for reading and for your wonderful comments dear readers and fellow poets.
Our daily resource is Nobel-winning poet Louise Glück’s essay, “Against Sincerity.” Here, Glück muses on the difference between honesty and truth, and how, in poetry, words that ring true are not necessarily those that are “honest” in the sense of recounting events as they happened. After all, a poem isn’t a newspaper article. Making art means selecting, trimming, choosing, exaggerating, and even deceiving, all in service of a goal that differs from a bare recitation of facts.
And now, to put theory in our practice, here’s our optional prompt! This one takes its inspiration from Yentl van Stokkum’s poem, “It’s the Warmest Summer on Record Babe,” which blends casual, almost blasé phrasing with surreal events like getting advice from a bumblebee. In your poem today, try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.
The day started with zero ideas. Then I read Kim Russel's Don't walk, swim.
My poem today started off silly and overdramatic (as per prompt) but then it decided to go somewhere else. Here goes...
And now, here’s our prompt for the day — totally optional, as usual. The Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous two-line poem:
Odi et amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Here’s an English translation.
I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you ask?
I don’t know, but I feel it happening and am tortured.
I thought about this poem the other day when I read a social media post collecting sentences from Charles Darwin’s letters, including:
“Oh my God how do I hate species & varieties.”
“I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world.”
“I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.”
“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.”
“I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.”
I must confess, the idea of being so grumpy that you have come to hate clover and bees is highly amusing to me. Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.
Zekreet, November 2025
In his poem, “Spring Thunder,” Mark van Doren brings us a short, haunting evocation of weather and the change in seasons. Today, we’d like to challenge you to craft your own short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.
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