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Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 765

Robert Lee Brewer — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:30:48 +0000

For this week’s prompt, take the phrase “Year of (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include “Year of the Horse,” “Year of Great Fortune,” “Year of Unbearable Mistakes,” and/or “Year of Reading Not Enough Books.”

An alternate title might be “(blank) of the Year.”

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.

Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the site, go to Disqus to create a free new account, verify your account on this site below (one-time thing), and then comment away. It’s free, easy, and the comments (for the most part) don’t require manual approval (though I check from time to time for those that do).

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Write a poem every single day of the year with Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming. After sharing more than a thousand prompts and prompting thousands of poems for more than a decade, Brewer picked 365 of his favorite poetry prompts here.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at a Year of Blank Poem:

“Year of Many Years,” by Robert Lee Brewer

I find myself layering the moments
one on top of the other and feeling
that each moment is actually many
moments and that this year may be
many years and that time itself falls
through these layers and moments
and forgets itself as if it does not
actually exist and if not then when
would things begin and end and is
it possible in a year of many years
that I live a life of many lives that
stack one on top of the other and
each with a unique story to tell
about each me of the many mes
who all want a many great things.

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Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 764

Robert Lee Brewer — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:15:00 +0000

For this week’s prompt, write a fear poem. The poem could be about something you fear, or that someone (or something) else fears. Or maybe you’re fearless or just deep diving into the concept of fear. Don’t fret, and don’t fear; we’re all poets here.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.

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Time is running out! Writer’s Digest is celebrating our 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards with new categories and prizes. We’re looking for your best poems of 32 lines or fewer or un-published chapbooks 25 pages or fewer. Any form of poetry is eligible including epic, free verse, odes, pantoums, sonnets, villanelles, and even haiku. This is the only Writer’s Digest competition exclusively for poets. Win cash and an article about you in the July/August issue of Writer’s Digest. The extended deadline is December 15.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at a Fear Poem:

“Heights,” by Robert Lee Brewer

Watching all the others gather
to jump off the bridge doesn’t
fill me with FOMO as they yell,
“YOLO,” into the summer blue
sky. Let them live, or die, how
ever they wish, but I won’t miss
a chance to keep both my feet
rooted to the stable earth with
gravity here to hold me close.

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Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 763

Robert Lee Brewer — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

After a month of daily poeming in November, I hope everyone’s OK with getting back into a more relaxed weekly pace with the Wednesday Poetry Prompts.

For this week’s prompt, write a want poem. The poem could be about something you want, or that someone else wants. Of course, you can play off themes like “help wanted” or “wanted: dead or alive” signs and notices. And if something is in short supply, it is wanting. So there are a few different avenues y’all can travel for this one.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.

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Writer’s Digest is celebrating our 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards with new categories and prizes. We’re looking for your best poems of 32 lines or fewer or un-published chapbooks 25 pages or fewer. Any form of poetry is eligible including epic, free verse, odes, pantoums, sonnets, villanelles, and even haiku. This is the only Writer’s Digest competition exclusively for poets. Win cash and an article about you in the July/August issue of Writer’s Digest.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at a Want Poem:

“The Last Thing,” by Robert Lee Brewer

The last thing I wanted was to
forget the last thing that I said
because saying it made me blue.
The last thing I wanted was to
accidentally bother you
or somehow get into your head.
The last thing I wanted was to
forget the last thing that I said.

(Note on form and prompt: The form is a triolet, which is my fallback form, and the prompt is eerily similar to the final Wednesday Poetry Prompt before we started November, which was to write an “I Want (blank)” poem. I thought about changing today’s prompt, but then thought it might be fun to revisit similar territory after a month of poeming to see if our perspectives have changed at all.)

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2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Next Steps

Robert Lee Brewer — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000

We’ve written the poems. Now, it’s time to collect them: Here are the next steps for this year’s challenge. Before you dive in, click here to read the original guidelines for the challenge.

Step One: Write the Poems

We accomplished this step during the month of November. We have 30 prompts to prove it (34 if we’re being technical with the two-for-Tuesday prompts).

Step Two: Revise the Poems

This step is optional, though I highly encourage taking a look over your first drafts and playing around with them in December. (Tip: Start with the ones from the beginning of the month first, since you have the most distance from these.)

Step Three: Collect the Poems

I’m looking for 10-20 pages of poems. Not more than one poem per page, though it’s okay to have more than one page per poem. If you wrote every day in the challenge, this means you’re going to have to make tough decisions about which poems to include.

A couple recommendations:

Look for quality first. That’s what I’ll be looking for first.
Search for a theme. It might be a storyline, common subjects, a voice, a mood, etc. Not necessary, but this can make a collection stronger.

Step Four: Format the Manuscript

I’m really not too picky here, but I do want all the poems in the same file. There are few things that irk me more than receiving 20 individual files.

Here are a few other guidelines:

10- to 12-point font like Arial or Times New Roman (or something simple like that) is preferred. In other words, nothing too fancy.
1″ margins–give or take.
.doc, .docx, .txt files are my favorites. But if you’re unable to do those, .pdf can work too.
Please include your name and contact information.
Please include a title for the manuscript.
Table of Contents is not mandatory, but it’s a nice touch.
Feel free to include a bio–but I’ve never used a bio to guide my judging.
Please no images/art work.

Also, I won’t accept/consider manuscripts that include more than 20 poems with instructions that I pick my favorites. That’s not how this challenge works. You’re the poet; you need to make the artistic decisions.

Step Five: Submit the Manuscript

Submit manuscripts to rbrewer@aimmedia.com with the subject line: 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge. I have a very busy inbox–so the e-mail subject line is very, very important. Very. Deadline: January 15, 2026.

Step Six: Wait for Judging

My goal is to make a decision by spring. March 20, 2026. If I hit that goal, we should be ready to jump into the 2026 April PAD Challenge with some excitement. That said, I’m often juggling way too many things at once (some expected, some not so)–so please be patient with me if I find myself overwhelmed with unexpected projects between now and then.

The post 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Next Steps appeared first on Writer's Digest.

2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 30

Robert Lee Brewer — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 05:30:00 +0000

We made it! Today is the final day of the month and the writing part of this challenge, but it’s not the end of the challenge, because there’s an extra step, which I’ll discuss in more details tomorrow in a “Next Steps” post. So stay tuned! (Also, be sure to join us on Wednesdays for Wednesday Poetry Prompts in December and beyond!)

For today’s prompt, write a next poem. I mean, whatever poem you write next will be your next poem, but it could also be about your next favorite movie or song. Or your next door neighbor. Or your next obsession. Or next worry. Or next whatever.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a Next Poem:

“Next to You”

I have little to say,
because I’d rather not
break whatever spell may
or may not have been cast
whenever we spoke last
and you liked me a lot.
For better or for worse,
I don’t think I can talk–
broken by this love curse–
and I may barely walk,
because when next to you
as my brain tries to think
I find all I can do
is bleed out all my ink.

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2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 29

Robert Lee Brewer — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 05:32:44 +0000

Tomorrow is the final day of the challenge? Let’s make today count!

For today’s prompt, write a remix poem. Turn your haiku into a sonnet or your sonnet into free verse. Or take a favorite line from one of your poems and make it the title of a new poem. You can remix one of your poems from this month, or you can reach back further into your bag of poems. Also, not sure if I’m going to go this route today yet or not (check my example poem below), but I often like to mix several of my poems together into something new.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a Remix Poem:

“I Don’t Think I Need to Explain”

The world can fall apart on a plane
or a train or an empty street, and if
you try hard enough and think about

the world, you really can open a window
and hear the birds singing; I assumed
everyone who wanted some got some.

(Note about my remix: I decided to lift only phrases from my what, when, where, who, why, and how poems to use in my remix poem, including the title. It was interesting, because they weren’t all in the same POV and tense.)

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2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 28

Robert Lee Brewer — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 06:30:00 +0000

Well, we’re now four weeks in on this challenge. After today’s poem, we’ve just got two more to go. So, let’s go!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “What (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “What a Fabulous New Poem,” “What the Heck Is That,” “What I Meant to Say,” and/or “What Ever.” Let’s figure out what today’s poems are going to be, shall we.

Also, a quick note on this month’s (blank) prompts: You might’ve noticed a theme. After “How (blank),” “Where (blank),” “Who (blank),” “Why (blank),” and today’s “What (blank),” you might be wondering where the “When (blank)” poem will appear. Well, actually, it already did as a Wednesday Poetry Prompt back in early September and can be found here. Also, this is a good time to remind people new to the site that we break lines together throughout the year on Wednesdays with the Wednesday Poetry Prompts.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a “What (Blank)” Poem:

“What’s the Matter”

Even on my worst day
I can open a window
and hear the birds singing,
remember a moment of kindness:

the world can fall apart,
but it always finds a way to rebuild
and meander along as it does
and perhaps, I should too.

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2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 27

Robert Lee Brewer — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 06:12:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving! I know not everyone on here celebrates this day, but it’s big for my family, as it’s often one of the few times (and sometimes the only time) all year that we are ALL able to get together and get each other laughing so much that we can barely breathe (which is a good thing). I’m thankful for another year of us gathering together to poem, speaking of which…

For today’s prompt, write a nice poem. I mean, there have been a lot of really nice poems written this month already, but I’m thinking of nice as being the opposite of mean. Still, my interpretation doesn’t matter, because you can take nice in whatever direction you’d like.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a Nice Poem:

“Thanksgiving”

Tonight, it’s enough
to sit on this couch
cuddled close and
watching the kids
act out their roles
and to know we’ll
have another day
to live and love
together.

The post 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 27 appeared first on Writer's Digest.

2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 26

Robert Lee Brewer — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 06:55:00 +0000

For today’s prompt, write a meandering poem. The term “meandering” can be used as an adjective or noun and basically means “following a winding course” (or the act of doing so, for the noun). So I’ll leave it up to each poet to figure out what a meandering poem means for you. Let’s meander together.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a Meandering Poem:

“While I Have You”

Let’s take a stroll through this park
before it gets too dark and wander
along never traveled paths as our
words confuse our brains and hearts
with their possible intentions as we
confess our longings and desires
and maybe there’s a chance there
could be more but for now let’s
just meander through this maze
of conversational possibility.

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2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 25

Robert Lee Brewer — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 06:38:00 +0000

It’s time for the final Two-for-Tuesday prompt of this year’s challenge. Veterans of these challenges probably already knew what it was going to be after last week’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt, because I always include it.

For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

Write a love poem, and/or…
Write an anti-love poem.

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.

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Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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Here’s my attempt at a Love and/or Anti-Love Poem:

“Lovesick”

As long as I long
I wonder if that
means I am alive
or living a lie
lost in my longing
like a lone madman
wandering the roads
beneath the full moon
long after midnight
thinking my wanting
will make it somehow
manifest like some
long lost destiny.

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