50 Poetry Prompts Every Writer Should Try

50 Poetry Prompts Every Writer Should Try

Everyone gets stuck in their writing from time to time. On occasion, that little bit of being stuck turns into terrifying writer’s block, and sometimes it’s just a day’s wait, a hiccup in creativity. If you have ever suffered from these, you might need a little push to get going again. The best way to get going in my writing is to start writing. Even if I can’t work on my WIP, any writing, even inspired by a prompt, is helpful. Unstick yourself before you are stuck. This short list of poetry prompts helps. I’m a poet, and I know what it’s like to be unable to come up with an idea. Sometimes you need a little push. We hope this list helps you. Here are a few or 50 prompts to kickstart your poetry.

These prompts are modeled after some famous poems. Every writer should try writing these poems. 

The Prompts:

1. The lost and alone. Write about the feeling you had the first time you felt helpless.

2. The love poem. Start by writing a love poem that is 100% honest/a bunch of complaints. 

3. Tell the world how you like the person more because they are not perfect.

4. The odd metaphor, write a metaphor that uses ODD imagery. 

5. Image Start with a famous painting and writing a poem that tells a story about the scene coming to life. 

6. Magical real, Have the images in your poem attack you, the poet.

7. Short short, write a poem that talks about an Ah-Ha moment but has 5 lines or less.

8. Haiku write a haiku that starts with an image and ends with a lie.

9. The Lie. Write a poem where the poet is lying to themself. 

10. The go-to. Go to a busy place, a coffee shop, a hotel lobby, a train station, or anywhere with lots of people, listen to their conversations, and use lines that they say as lines in your poem. 

11. The camera. Make your pen a camera, go to an exciting place, and write vivid descriptions of the site like your pen is a camera. 

12. A recipe for disaster. Write a poem about a meaningful relationship as if you are writing down a recipe for that relationship.

13. The cat. Write a poem about a cat. I don’t know why; all poets write one of these eventually. 

14. Free write, write 20 lines of poetry, doing your best not to let any of them go together or mean anything. 

15. The first line. Use the first line of your favorite poem and use it in your poem somewhere. 

16. Music inspires; find a genre of music you do not listen to often, listen to it with your eyes closed, and hear as many words as you can. Then write a poem that captures the feeling you had listening to the music. 

17. The scary. Write a horror poem. 

18. The conversation. Write a poem as a letter to your favorite poet. 

19. Write a poem about the last sunset you will ever see. 

20. The fly buzz, write a poem about the last thing you see or hear before you die. 

21. The Circus, write a poem using something from a circus as a metaphor for someone or some profession today. 

22. The goodbye. Write a poem as a goodbye to the old you.

23. The writer. Write a poem about poetry. 

24. The place you love; write a poem about the sea, the mountains, the south, some other country, or any place you love. 

25. The lament. Use a poem as a plea for change in your life.

26. The quiet. Write a poem that you would have to whisper to someone sleeping.

27. The tiger. Write a poem about a creature, real or unreal, and you’d be afraid to meet. 

28. The outer space. Start in the stars and imagine living 100 years from now. 

29. The copy. Mimic the style of your favorite poem but make the subject matter completely different. 

30. The call to action. Take a modern-day cause and turn it into a poem that tries to convince people to take action. 

31. The love text. Write a poem of text messages. 

32. The time traveler. Write a poem to a past generation asking them not to do something terrible that they did or let happen. 

33. The sad. Write about your most heartbreaking event.

34. The good day. Use your best day as a poem. 

35. No return address; write a poem about being in love with something (cell phone, car, a gadget) that will never love you back but imagine it loves you back in the poem. 

36. The universal. Write a poem about coffee or tea. 

37. Wrong way Write a poem about a time you fought over something but ended up wrong. 

38. The I hate. Write a poem about something you hate (football, onions, hockey, people driving slowly in the fast lane)

39. No, see. Start by saying something you are afraid that anyone else to ever find out about you. 

40. The small child. A poem about a hope being a small boy who gets beat up every day. 

41. Emotion Being Write about meeting your worst controlled emotion as a different person sitting at a bar. 

42. The fight. Write a poem about a fight or argument you had with someone. 

43. The mother Write a poem about how people in heaven treat your mother. 

44. The quest. Write a poem about going on a medieval quest to find the thing you are missing in your life (like job satisfaction)

45. The ghost. Write a poem about a ghost waking you up at night and wanting you to help them. 

46. Specific ending. Write a poem about the zombie apocalypse. 

47. The challenge. Use a famous poetic form Sestina, Villanelle, sonnet.

48. Use to know. Write a poem to someone you used to know well but have fallen out of touch with. 

49.  The Monster. Write a poem about a monster that is the hero. 

50. The short stack. Write a 10-word memoir poem. 

51. Flying. Write a poem about flying high above the trees and looking down at your life. 

So here are 50 poetry prompts that inspire you to write. Many of these were taken from famous poems. Suppose you can guess which ones. Leave us a comment below, or if you have something to tell us, a correction, suggestion, or can even leave a poetry prompt. Maybe in our Poetry prompts part 2, we will use them.