Poem Prompts to Give You Ideas

Here, you’ll find poem prompts that you can turn into poetry. At the bottom of the page are links to hundreds of other poem starters.

10 Phrases

Use one of these phrases in a poem (or a story)

  • "something with claws"

  • "oddly inflated"

  • "inside my eyelids"

  • "grind it to dust"

  • "a familiar dream"

  • "a friend of a friend of a friend"

  • "in my peripheral vision"

  • "like an unsent letter"

  • "monumental and very far away"

  • "flooded the basement"

  • "more bitter than sweet"

  • "floating like pollen"

5 Topics

1) A close friendship

Questions to give you ideas:

  • What brought you and your friend together?

  • Close friends often develop a kind of special language, with certain words or catch-phrases that they use with each other (nicknames for things, quotes from movies, inside jokes, etc.). Does the friendship you're writing about have any special words or phrases? What memories do you associate with them? What do they mean?

  • What place do you associate with this friend (a particular café, a park, the friend’s home)?

  • What memories express specific aspects of this friendship? What memory expresses something that you admire about this friend?

  • What's something you and your friend prefer to leave unspoken?

  • Have you ever dreamed about this friend? What did you dream? What did it mean?

2) A particular cabinet or drawer

Questions to give you ideas:

  • What's in it? How do the items relate to each other? What memories are attached to them?

  • How have its contents changed over time? What story does that tell?

  • What's missing from it?

  • What does it mean to you or to someone else? How would its meaning change depending on who opened it?

3) An imaginary animal (invent one!)

Questions to give you ideas:

  • What does the animal look like?

  • How does it move?

  • Where does it live?

  • What does it eat?

  • What does it think about? What is it like to be that animal?

  • What is it afraid of?

  • What can you compare it to?

  • What does it mean to you?

4) A memory of a family meal

Questions to give you ideas:

  • What did you eat? What were the sights, sounds, smells, flavors, textures? Who prepared it, and what was involved in the preparation?

  • Where did the meal take place? What did the place look like?

  • Who was there? How did they behave? What did they say? How did their feelings come through in their words or their silences?

  • What do you see now, looking back at the scene, that you weren't aware of at the time?

5) Writing

Questions to give you ideas:

  • What other experience or activity does writing remind you of? What does it feel like when the writing's going well, or when it's going badly?

  • What interesting answer could you invent to the question, "Where do you get your ideas?"

  • What is a phrase or sentence you had trouble writing? Show the struggle.

  • If you had a muse, what kind of person would he or she be? What would he or she say to you?

  • What is mysterious about writing to you?

  • What happens in the secret lives of words?

More Poem Prompts

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