Prompt #250 –Who?

 

Have you ever wanted to be someone other than who you are? This week, try to write a poem in which you pretend to be someone else. In other words, adopt a persona. Get out of your own head. Re-create yourself as someone you admire or someone you make up. Be anyone but yourself.

Guidelines:

1. Give some thought to people you admire or would like to know. These may be everyday people, family members, friends, famous people, people in the news, media reporters, entertainment industry people, or sports stars.

2. You might begin by making a list of people from whom to choose. You can add brief notes to your list that include personality traits, etc. about the people you've listed.

3. Select one person and jot down some detailed things that help you get inside that person’s head.

4. Begin your first draft and see where your thoughts take you.

5. Stay focused on a particular quality of character, a particular event, or something very specific about the person you’ve chosen. Remember, you’re going to become that person for the space of your poem. You won’t write as yourself but, rather, you’ll write as the person you selected in step 3.

Tips:

1. As always, show, don’t tell.  Whether the person you become is real or imagined, don’t tell abut the person—use examples of behaviors to demonstrate who that person is.

2. Work toward getting rid of pesky relative pronouns (that, which, whom, who). If you find one in your draft, try to rewrite the line without it.

3. Avoid including too many details.

4. Take out adjectives where they aren’t really necessary.

5. Stay away from prepositional phrases and “ing” endings.

6. Include the person's name somewhere in the poem. (A note at the beginning or end would be fine.)

Prompt #235 – From A Different Perspective

This week, the challenge is to imagine that you’re someone else (a historical figure, a celebrity of any kind, anyone famous or infamous, a homeless person, a painter, a musician, one of your relatives or neighbors, a character from a song or novel) and, then, to write a poem from the perspective of that person. These are often called persona poems.

Guidelines:

1. Start with a list in which you include as many details about the person you’ve chosen as you can.

2. Reflect on those details and decide which you can best use in a poem.

3. Remember that you’re writing from the perspective of the person you’ve chosen, not your own perspective. Consider how the person you’ve chosen might think and feel.

4. Begin writing and see where your poem takes you. One possibility is to begin or end your poem with a quote—something the person you’ve chosen actually said or wrote.

5. Consider writing a monologue in poem form.

Tips:

1.  Be careful of saying too much and including too many details. Stay focused.

2.  Remember that you’re “speaking” through someone else’s voice.

3. Think in terms of your person’s viewpoints and perhaps include a fictional layer to address concepts and ideas with which you’re not completely comfortable yourself.

4. Don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re not writing about someone else, you are that someone for the space of your poem.

5. Remember that your poem shouldn’t include commentary or analysis.