What better way to celebrate poetry month than creating your own poem? Use these poetry prompts and inspirational quotes to spark your imagination and get you started! Plus, learn from published writers with our poetry book recommendations.
It helps to find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted to sit and write, maybe with a hot mug of tea and some tasty snacks. Some writers also like to listen to background music while they work, but others prefer total silence. Remember that you can interpret these prompts any way you wish—there is no right or wrong way to write creatively! Let yourself free-write and focus on the present. . . .
1. What would your favorite color taste like?
2. Describe your first memory as vividly as you can.
3. Write a poem that is twenty-five words or less.
4. Describe the weather indoors. What does it look and feel like?
5. If you could freeze any moment in time, which would it be?
6. Turn on the radio or Spotify and find a random song. Write about how it makes you feel.
7. Write a poem describing the room around you: How does it feel, smell, and look? What memories does it bring up?
Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist.
8. Imagine that your mind is an art gallery. Take readers on a guided tour of some of your memories and dreams.
9. If winter were a person, what would they be like?
10.What would you think and feel if you woke up inside a dream?
11. Aliens are trying desperately to communicate with humans. What are they saying?
12.Walk around the room and pick up the first object that catches your eye. What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel?
13.Write a poem about the things you love most about yourself.
I don’t write poems to melt your heart. I write them so our hearts can melt together.
14. What would it be like to live in an eternal summer?
15. If your favorite song were a friend, what would they be like?
16. Imagine you are transported into the world of your favorite movie. Describe living there in detail.
17. You can fix one global issue with the wave of a magic wand. Which would you fix, and why?
18. You’ve developed the ability to speak to animals. What do they say?
19. Use a line from one of the poems you’ve written to begin or end a new poem.
20. You can rewind time. What moment would you return to and do over again?
21. Write a poem using the following words: breath, scream, ice, whistle.
22. Write a poem about the street you grew up on.
For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it.
If only we're brave enough to be it.
23. Close your eyes, and journey through an imaginary land. Describe it in detail.
24. Write a poem made up of nursery rhymes.
25. Copy the first verse of a song you love. Rewrite the lyrics to reflect your own experience.
26. Write a poem about the last dream you remember.
27. Write a poem about the thing that scares you more than anything else in the world.
28. Choose one of the five senses to write a poem about.
29. Write a poem using these words: toil, love, handshake, emotion.
30. What do you dream for the future? Write about it in detail.
