Poetry Prompts and Poem Starters

• Three wishes
• Traveling to an unknown place
• Getting a haircut
• A scientific fact (real or invented)
• An insect that got into your home
• The sound of a specific language
• Death
• The number 3
• The ocean
• Missing someone
• Something that makes you angry
• The feeling of writing, why you want to be a writer
• The ups and downs of love
• The view out your window
• City lights at night
• A particular work of art
• Having a superpower
• Being in an airplane
• Playing a sport
• A shadow
• A person transformed into an animal

Write instructions for how to:

• Daydream
• Cry
• Kiss well
• Find happiness
• Peel a peach

Write a poem that contains all three words from one of these lists:

1. "Silky," "gigantic," and "puzzle."
2. "Leaf," "accelerating," and "sticky."
3. "Skin," "drastic," and "dusty."
4. "Interrupt," "nutmeg," and "crystalline."
5. "Exacting," "oxygen," and "delicate."
6. "Reptilian," "arched," and "honey."

Even more poem starters

Keep writing! Choose one of the links below.

Get more poetry ideas.

Learn about how to write poetry.

Get creative writing prompts for fiction.

View a list of pages with poem starters.