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

Nov: Soweto Poets Week

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, February 19, 2012 In : Soweto Poets 

Sipho Sephamla, Mafika Gwala, James Matthews, Keorapetse Kgositsile to name but a few are poets that rose up in an era where poetry was just not fanciful. "Soweto poetry is the single most important socio-literary phenomenon of the seventies in South Africa..." Chris Mann in the introduction of his collection called Soweto Poetry. 

Soweto Poetry is also known as Post-Sharpeville poetry, township poetry, New Black Poetry of the Seventies, Participatory poetry and People's poetry" so not all the...


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Poverty ride by Morula Wa Kutukgolo

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, November 19, 2011 In : Soweto Poets 

Don't let it catch up with you,
Or come anywhere near you.
Do everything you can to avoid it:
Go to school.
Go to school while you have a chance.
Equip yourself with a skill
You can later use
To put food on your table,
To put a roof over your head,
Clothes on your back
And cash in your bank.
Gather for yoursef knowledge
No one can take away from you.
When opportunity shouts
Skilled persons,certificate,diploma or degree
Don't find yourself saying
Not there
For not there will tie your hands
Lik...


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Life in black and white by Thabang Moabi

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, November 19, 2011 In : Soweto Poets 

A ticket to my destiny
From destitute
Allow me
U denied
Boundries of health

My ratio
Concern food ration of tomorrow
I blame you
For selling in the pavement
Of a white man's supermarket
Listening to every movement
Assuming a customer

The regime of your act
Handcuffed me
The night illness feebled my daughter

U confined me for yourself
I,incarcerated in your cage
You should have seen my rage

© Thabang Moabi

Day 5 | 17 November 2011


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Day 5 Writing Prompt | 18 November 2011

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, November 19, 2011 In : Soweto Poets 
(Soweto Poets Week)

"the bit into my flesh (handcuffs)"
(from 'Kwela-Ride'  by Mafika Gwala)


DEADLINE: 11:59M, 18 NOV
 
Kwela-Ride by Mafika Gwala
 
Dompas!
I looked back
Dompas!
I went through my pockets
Not there.
 
They bit into my flesh (handcuffs).
 
Came the kwela-kwela
We crawled in.
The young men sang.
In that dark moment
 
It all became familiar.
 


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Scavenging dogs roam around by Morula Wa Kutukgolo

Posted by Poetry Potion on Friday, November 18, 2011 In : Soweto Poets 

Scavenging dogs
Roam around,
Fighting fiercely
Over abandoned children.
Abandoned children
By parents hoping someone
Will throw a brick at those dogs.
Parents ignoring to instill
In their chidren morals and values,
Wisdom and knowledge,
Love and laughter.
Parents ignoring to love their children
And allow them to laugh.
Ignoring to teach them what they know
And allow them to ask.
Scavenging dogs
Roam around in the world,
Looking for the type without
The basics for survival;
The type desparate ...


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