Poetry Prompt #2 - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

What are you afraid of?

A childhood experience?

Something that happened to you more recently?

A person? Illness? Being alone?

Write about something you fear, something that "haunts" you, something you'd like to forget but can't. Take your personal "big bad wolf" by the tail, swing it through the air, then toss it over your shoulder in a poem.

Examples: 

"Fear" by Hart Crane

"A Fear of Old Age" by Jack Anderson
"Fear of the Future" by John Koethe
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" by John Keats

Submission Guidelines

Following are links to submission guidelines for a baker's dozen of quality poetry journals. Check 'em out! (Just click on the links.)

Prairie Schooner

http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/submission/guidelines.html

Ploughshares

http://www.pshares.org/submit/index.cfm

Black Warrior Review

http://blackwarrior.webdelsol.com/submit.html

Tiferet

http://www.tiferetjournal.com/page/submissions-1

New York Quarterly

http://www.nyquarterly.org/submit.html

Literary Review

http://www.theliteraryreview.org/submit.html

Lips

http://home.earthlink.net/~poetry_magazine/Lips.html

Edison Literary Review

http://www.edisonliteraryreview.org/contact

Paterson Literary Review

http://old.pccc.edu/poetry/Publications/PLR.htm

U.S. 1 Worksheets

http://us1poets.com/submissions.htm

Valparaiso Poetry Review (online journal)

http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/guidelines.html

The Pedestal (online journal)

http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/submitguidelines.php

Poemeleon (online journal)

http://www.poemeleon.org/submission-guidelines2/

Poetry Prompt #1 – Park Bench

Here's a prompt designed for looking inward, for generating a kind of self-observation.

1. As you sit on a park bench (describe the scenery), someone comes over and sits beside you.

2. You say “hello” and begin to chat. Within a few moments you realize that the person with whom you’re chatting is you!

3. Is this you as a child, young adult, you right now, or the future you? Describe yourself.

4. Include what you talk about in your poem. What important things are said? What’s going on around you as you talk? What does this “encounter” offer you?

5. How does the encounter end?