Members' Area
To help inspire entrants, the National Poetry Competition prompt series has re-launched for 2023. Many competition entrants wrote in to say they had used our prompt series to teach workshops, encourage other writers they knew and, of course, write their own poems for the competition.
The first set of prompts for the 2023 competition includes prompts from Rosie Jackson, Sarah Doyle, Damen O’Brian, Meesha Williams, Kristal Phillips, Michael Conley – download here
The second set of prompts for the 2023 competition includes prompts from Joanna Nissel, Jack Houston, Sandy Solomon, Christopher James, Kit Ingram, Yasmin Inkersole – download here
The third set, including prompts from Michael W. Thomas, Katie Hale, Charlotte Marsh, Jane Burn, Mark Farley and Paul McMahon – download here
To accompany the National 2022 competition, The Poetry Society has created a list of writing prompts written by past winning, commended and longlisted poets. These are being published each week across social media.
The first set, including prompts from Vanessa Lampert, Kathy D’Arcy, Merrie Joy Williams, Eric Yip, Jo Morris Dixon and Ellora Sutton, have been collated into a PDF writing aid that can be downloaded here. There is also a black and white printable version available here.
The second set includes prompts from Christopher James, Lisa Kelly, Marie Baleo, Laura Theis, Fan O’Leary and I. Patterson. They are available in a colour PDF writing aid here and as a black and white printable version here.
The third set includes prompts from Chris Wellings, Marie-Louise Eyres, Yasmin Inkersole, HLR, Tamsin Hopkins and Maria Isakova-Bennett. They are available in a colour PDF writing aid here and as a black and white printable version here.
The fourth set includes prompts from Bella Cox, Victor Tapner, Trish Bennett, Kylie L Robinson, Enda Wyley and Tim Ellis. They are available in a colour PDF writing aid here and as a black and white printable version here.
The National Poetry Competition 2022 closes at midnight on 31 October 2022
Past Prompts from previous National Poetry Competitions
Our friends at the Poetry School have again gathered together some writing prompts to inspire prize-winning poems.
All these prompts come from tutors and poets involved in delivering the various courses and activities offered the Poetry School. Courses are available in person or via CAMPUS, the Poetry School’s online social network. CAMPUS membership is free and easy – pay them a visit and start joining in the poetry conversation. New students also get 15% off their first course. Book by phone to take advantage.
Meanwhile, we hope this following list of ideas sets your poetry brains ticking. And if you’d like to print them off, there’s a pdf available, too.
And don’t forget to enter the National Poetry Competition once you’ve polished up a poem or two. You have to be in it to win it..
Human / Nature
Think about an important, political, environmentally alert issue (there’s not much which isn’t these days!) that is important to you on a personal level. To do this you might choose the last petition you signed, or meant to sign, as a subject. Write a poem, that expresses its issues clearly and explicitly – however uncomfortable this feels! If you alight on a metaphor, then limit yourself to one that is a consistent strand throughout the poem.
Karen McCarthy Woolf from the Poetry School course ‘Human / Nature’
mccarthywoolf.com | @KMcCarthyWoolf
Poetry Life Drawing
Organise your own poetry-life-drawing class. Ask a real life person to sit for you and make a poem about them in real time. They don’t need to sit for hours, but make sure that you spend real time looking at that person and writing as you do so. You might want to get them doing some kind of activity themselves. Or maybe you want to pose them somehow, maybe with certain objects. You don’t need to write the finished poem in the time they sit for you. You could simply begin to sketch notes and lines about what you see in front of you, and then finish the poem later.
Sarah Hesketh from the Poetry School course ‘Poetry as Portraiture’
www.sarahhesketh.co.uk
Poetry and Parenthood
Choose a word – ‘mother’ or ‘father.’ What does that word mean to you? Mindstorm for five minutes – you might automatic write without letting your pen leave the page – and just pour out all the things the word makes you think of. Memories of parents (your own and other kids); adverts; fictional characters; images; associations. Think verbs or nouns you associate with the word (baking, the newspaper, darts, weepies, ironing, poohsticks); character-traits (reliable, stern); expectations. Write down scents or tastes or sounds you associate with your own mother or father or yourself as a mother or father. The poem will be called ‘The Mother’ or ‘The Father’. Your notes will be the basis.
Clare Pollard from the Poetry School course ‘The Poetry of Parenthood’
clarepollard.wordpress.com | @PoetClare
Prose Poems
Draft a prose poem that inhabits a moment from childhood, either real or fictional. If it’s over 8 sentences, revise it down to that as a maximum. This should sharpen its focus. Next, do one of the following:
i) revise your poem into a single sentence, or
ii) revise your poem to make use of anaphora (repeating the beginnings of sentences).
Carrie Etter from the Poetry School course ‘Advanced Prose Poetry’
carrieetter.com
‘Dear’ friend…
Write a poem titled ‘Dear [x]’, where x might = ‘landlady’, ‘semolina’, ‘sea monsters’, ‘Donald Trump’ – you get the idea. There should be some sort of edgy relationship between the speaker and the object of address; they can’t actually be ‘dear’ in any simple sense.
Dai George from the Poetry School course ‘Irony and Edge’
daigeorge.com/publications
Devastation
Remember or imagine a scene of cataclysm or devastation. You can research an historical event that you have found haunting. Put yourself into the scene as an observer and, making use of a catalogue or list, take stock of everything you see and hear. Extend your descriptions as fully as you can, and vary your syntax.
Liane Strauss from the Poetry School course ‘Working with the Deep-breathing Line’
Poetry of Work
Write a poem which explores the ideas about work that you have grown up with. Think back to being a child – how did the adults around you show you what work is? You could choose a particular person in your family or your life to focus on. Consider how you have carried these lessons forward into your own life – either your working life or your creative life. One important thing to remember when writing about work is to make it rich in physical detail. This is especially important when we are writing about concepts that are hard to define, like love or work. Work, even when it is mental work, is a physical activity, and to make your poem really come to life, think about how you can describe the physical reality of work.
Kim Moore from the Poetry School course ‘What Work Is’
kimmoorepoet.wordpress.com