About the Challenge

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" ~ William Wordsworth

A Poem A Day Challenge is a week-long (5 days) challenge that runs every third week of the month.

Participants receive writing prompts, daily, for which they write and submit a poem by 10 pm on the same day.

The best THREE (3) poems are selected and published the next morning.

TO PARTICIPATE: enter your email address here http://eepurl.com/eQCM6 and you will receive a daily prompt.

RULES OF THE CHALLENGE:

  • you have to sign up to receive the writing prompts
  • you have to write a new poem for the writing prompt and submitting by 10pm on the same day
  • you may not submit a poem you have already written before.

CHALLENGE PRIZE: From August we are offering a prize for the best overall poem. More info on the prize and how this is decided will follow.

QUARTERLY PRINT EDITION: Poems selected for the publication will be compiled for a quarterly print edition of A Poem A Day challenge. More info on this will follow.

submit here or here make sure to include the words:  APOEMADAY at the top of your submission


April: Freedom Week

When Common asks Assata Shakur 'what is freedom?' at the end of his tribute song, Song of Assata. Assata responds, "You're asking me about freedom? i know a whole lot more about what freedom isn't... coz i've never been free." She goes on to imagine what freedom could be.

It's Freedom Week in South Africa, that historical first vote for the oppressed Afrikan masses of South Africa happened eighteen years ago on 27 April. Now let's writer great poems, interrogate, question, image, dream about freedom.

peace

zamantungwa
editor, publisher

A Poem A Day Challenge, Every 3rd Week of the month

Poems

Showing category "The Romantics Week" (Show all posts)

Day 5 Writing Prompt

Posted by Poetry Potion on Friday, February 24, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

"Bereft and wandering, Odysseus"
(Odysseus' Fate by Konstantin Batyushkov)

the full poem is below...
 
DEADLINE: 11:59M, 24 Feb

Odysseus' Fate
by Konstantin Batyushkov 
 
Through horrors of land and horrors of sea
Bereft and wandering, Odysseus, 
God-fearing wretch, sought Ithaca;
Unfaltering, he plunged into the gloom of Hades;
The roar of fierce Charybdis and underwater Scylla's groans
Shook not his noble soul.
His patience vanquished cruel fate, it seemed,
And to the dregs he'd drunk the bitter cup.
It se...

Continue reading ...
 

Be and I shall be by Dina Koumatse

Posted by Poetry Potion on Friday, February 24, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

I shall be a star 
above on high
to guide your wondering spirit
in the endless sky.

You shall be my eternal half
my eonian soul mate
of my moonless nights.

I shall be a star 
above on high
and you, the rising tide
that pools deeply inside.


© Dina Koumatse

Continue reading ...
 

Day 4 Writing Prompt

Posted by Poetry Potion on Friday, February 24, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

"lonely night-time meditations / please me more when I am there"

(The Song of Exile by Antonio Goncalves Dias)

the full poem is below...

DEADLINE: 11:59M, 23 Feb


The Song Of Exile
by Antonio Goncalves Dias

My homeland has many palm-trees
and the thrush-song fills its air;
no bird here can sing as well
as the birds sing over there.

We have fields more full of flowers
and a starrier sky above,
we have woods more full of life
and a life more full of love.

Lonely night-time meditations
please me more when I am ...

Continue reading ...
 

Day 3 Writing Prompt

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

"I shall be a star above on high"
(I'll be a Tree by Sando Petofi)

the full poem is below...

DEADLINE: 11:59M, 23 Feb

   I'll be a Tree
   by Sandor Petofi

   I'll be a tree, if you are its flower,
   Or a flower, if you are the dew-
   I'll be the dew, if you are the sunbeam,
   Only to be united with you.

   My lovely girl, if you are the Heaven,
   I shall be a star above on high; 
   My darling, if you are hell-fire,
   To unite us, damned I shall die
...
Continue reading ...
 

the guide by zamantungwa

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

she walked ahead
breaking the darkness
leaving a shimmering trail
her golden footprints
meandering steadily around and over
scattered pieces of broken hope

when she was out of sight
a melody snaked around the trees
through the branches leaving
a silvery speckled trail to reach
the lost ears and guide them to her
all spirits would find their way home

when we awoke she was nowhere
not even a sound left to trace
but a fading memory like a dream
and we were safe

© zamantungwa

Day 2 | The Romantics
writing prompt ...
Continue reading ...
 

The Swan by Brigitte Poirson

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

The Swan died in the cold alone.
He did not cry, he did not moan.
No one was there to help, or to postpone
The fatal day when he died all alone.

Humans die daily, cold and alone,
Wishing they could send instead their clone
To the fatal time when they die all alone.
Unnoticed they turn into hard stone;
Their dust into void is blown;
They vanish into thin air unknown,
In worthless deaths Heaven and Earth condone

R.I.P. : Remembered In Poetry.

© Brigitte Poirson

Day 1 | The Romantics Week
word prompt from A...
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The Romantics Week | Day 2 Writing Prompt

Posted by Poetry Potion on Tuesday, February 21, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

"A lonely spirit guiding"
(A Dream by Allan Edgar Poe)

the full poem is below...
 
about the challenge > www.poetrypotion.com/a-poem-a-day-challenge
 
submit your poems > www.poetrypotion.com/a-poem-a-day-challenge-submissions
 
DEADLINE: 11:59M, 21 Feb

A Dream
by Allan Edgar Poe

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon ...

Continue reading ...
 

unchain by zamantungwa

Posted by Poetry Potion on Tuesday, February 21, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

unchain
set free
let flight be rediscovered

for in the heights
the view wide
and the air thin

clarity is achieved
in the silence
the heart's fluttering wings

resound loud
unchasten'd
undepriv'd

© zamantungwa

Day 1 | The Romantics Week
writing prompt from Charlotte Smith's 'On the Aphorism'

Continue reading ...
 

Love Limbo by Alyssa Campbell

Posted by Poetry Potion on Tuesday, February 21, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

"Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings"
the cause of all true suffering?

Torn off, shackles of what sanity remained
given, sweetly given, O true Love, in vain.

The pained endeavors of neither greed nor vanity,
earning only defacement, and loss of dignity.

The stab of Cupid's arrow, heart heedlessly slighted,
A resulting unbalanced love, unrequited


© Alyssa Campbell

Day 1 | The Romantics
word prompt from Charlotte's Smith's 'On the Aphorism'

Continue reading ...
 

The Romantics Week | Day 1 Writing Prompt

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, February 19, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 
"Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings
(On the Aphorism by Charlotte Smith)

the full poem is below...
 
about the challenge > www.poetrypotion.com/a-poem-a-day-challenge
 
submit your poems > www.poetrypotion.com/a-poem-a-day-challenge-submissions
 
DEADLINE: 11:59M, 20 Feb

On The Aphorism
by Charlotte Smith 
 
'L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes.' 
FRIENDSHIP, as some sage poet sings, 
Is chasten'd Love, depriv'd of wings, 
Without all wish or power to wander; 
Less volatile, but not less tender: 
Yet says the ...

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Feb: The Romantics Week

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, February 19, 2012, In : The Romantics Week 

Romantic poetry is not about love poems, it is a philosophical approach to literature, arts and culture which began in the mid/late-1700s as a reaction against the prevailing Enlightenment ideals of the day (Romantics favoured more natural, emotional and personal artistic themes)*. The poets of the era like William Wordsworth, Percy Shelley, Charlotte Smith and others, tended to focus on subjects and themes that included the world of myth and legend and mysticism**. The reigning belief of thi...

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