Here are 100 prompts for promptly-written impromptu poetry.

Use these prompts for daily practice, for warm-ups, for intellectual party games, or to pen last-minute valentines.

Commit to the whole 100 days; flex your dactyls and indulge in spondaic spontaneity.

Life is short, art is long long short.

Poetry Prompts

1. A Shakespearean sonnet about music theory.
2. Rotting roses, a tube stop, ecstasy.
3. Turn a poem you love into its opposite.
4. A triolet on toilet paper.
5. Fake passport, dragons, sex.
6. A dramatic monologue by a submarine captain.
7. A sestina about a childhood holiday.
8. Ink, blink, mink.
9. A poem describing the last episode of your favourite TV series.
10. Your mock-epic morning routine.
11. A haiku about the end of the world.
12. A rhyming couplet about couples.
13. Love at third sight.
14. Cold coffee, a möbius strip, a spiritual experience.
15. A funny poem about art.
16. Advice from your older self.
17. “Higher and higher every day,”
18. Write a found poem with words you can see from where you’re sitting.
19. Write a villanelle with A-rhyme “few” and B-rhyme “press”.
20. Write a poem around your favourite proverb. For inspiration: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/243216
21. Self-love, champagne, science.
22. Write a macaronic poem using false cognates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate
23. Ne plus ultra.
24. 2 lines about your mood.
25. Humble, tumble, fumble.
26. Write a poem composed of punctuation marks. For inspiration: Updike’s “Love Sonnet”.
27. An ode to giving in.
28. Write a poem about the most unpoetic thing you can think of.
29. Touch, much, clutch.
30. “There is no money in poetry…”
31. Rhyming resolutions.
32. “There was a young woman from Crewe…”
33. Hitch, ditch, stitch, itch.
34. Write a poem consisting only of direct speech.
35. Your favourite poet, cut-up: http://www.languageisavirus.com/cutupmachine.html
36. Green and gold.
37. Turn a blues song into a villanelle.
38. Necklace, essence, ascribe.
39. Ask, mask, task.
40. 2 lines of trochaic hexametre about feeling tired.
41. Bank, thank, drank.
42. “Upon the Russian frontier…” – Matthew Arnold.
43. Write an eponymous poem.
44. Write an ode to your favourite piece of clothing.
45. Brown paper, irises, Guinevere.
46. Write a poem about something you’ve never seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled.
47. A: none; B: trusted; C: brink; D: pair; E: rose; F: home; G: left.
48. “Life and Thought have gone away…” – Tennyson.
49. Write a modern alba. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alba_(poetry)
50. Almond, allemande, à la mode.
51. Include as many clichés & tropes as you can in a poem.
52. Dress, chess, press.
53. A ballad about a modern divorce.
54. A poem titled, “Death in January”.
55. Knelt, svelte, felt.
56. “That is her book-shelf, this her bed…”
57. Adore, shore, Theodore.
58. Rewrite your daily horoscope in trimetre.
59. Invent a new poetic form and give it your name.
60. Enthusiasm, miasma, simian.
61. Enter, interest, tern.
62. Tryst, mist, wrist, exist.
63. Invent a word that rhymes with “love”. There aren’t nearly enough…
64. Hide a love poem for someone to find.
65. Write a poem “blasoning” your lover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blason
66. “Roses are red, or purple, or pink…”
67. “I never said I loved you, John…”
68. An ode to the loveheart.
69. A poem from one famous lover to another.
70. Write a found poem on the road.
71. Tangent, exigent, gigantic.
72. A haiku about a missed rendezvous.
73. An allegorical poem about rebirth.
74. Foal, fool, foul, foil.
75. “The day we made the final ascent.”
76. Write a mnemonic poem to remember the zodiac.
77. An acrostic for the word BLANKET.
78. Explore the word, “stamp”.
79. Write a poem with a crayon.
80. Write an ekphrastic poem describing your favourite work of architecture.
81. A prose-poem on the state of flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
82. A ceremonial poem to be initiated as a poet.
83. Capture the way the light looks.
84. Write a poem with an extended metaphor about electric sockets.
85. Write a haiku on a pebble.
86. Peat, meet, sleet.
87. A poem about a political event you care nothing about. *
88. Write a dramatic monologue from the POV of a historical monarch.
89. 2 lines of dactylic hexameter about a countenance.
90. A poem in the form of an itinerary, planner, or almanac page.
91. A sonnet on your favourite cup or mug.
92. Thief, honeymoon, gold paint.
93. Attempt to convey the call of a bird you love.
94. A poem about a person who has been gardening, without mentioning gardening.
95. Might, mitre, miner, mint.
96. Compose a new rhyme to a children’s game.
97. A limerick involving a blouse.
98. Describe a food you dislike in as much disgusting detail as possible.
99. Find something poetic in the history of a coin.
100. A rhyming riddle to guess your favourite plant.

☞  You can download these prompts in PDF format in the Coterie.

A few books that may make you a better poet:

• A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
• The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

* For inspiration:

Poem with Tweezers by Orhan Veli Kanık

Not the atom bomb
Not the London Conference
Tweezers in one hand
Mirror in the other
What does she care?