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

Aug: Don Mattera Week

Posted by duduzile mabaso on Monday, September 19, 2011
A great big thanks to all the poets that took part in last week's challenge. 

So excited that all of you are just as inspired by Don Mattera as i am.

Winners will be announced soon.

peace

zamantungwa
editor, publisher


Continue reading...
 

haven by Bulumko Nyamezele

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, August 21, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

they welcome you with bright lights 
to blind you to the plight that plagues the poor 
and the involuntary blood transfusions 
that keep the city alive.

this is the city of cities 
where the bitumen counterfeits your dreams 
and fits you into the machine.
where your worth rises  when your morals are at their worst.

a purgatory where we start trouble back home 
so we can justify our sins 
and blame reality when we're too ashamed to lift up our chins. 

where people make peace with pieces of broken homes w...
Continue reading...
 

Jozy Gauteng by Simphiwe Phukwane

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, August 21, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

Carved on his wall are dreams and aspirations.
Thoughts of success and willingness to be free seem to be his plight. 
songs of promise are heard from his heart with his hear 
beating to the same rhythm .
he in melody allures  growing  fields of success.
They then too fall into his deep charms of deceit.

He promises silk and wine, tell you
You could never want more. 
Before you he lays cashmere robes, scented with jasmine.
He compares you to pearls of great prices. 
Yet all this fades as you are trapped...
Continue reading...
 

Gold City by Su

Posted by Poetry Potion on Sunday, August 21, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

Jo’Burg
You lure suitors from afar
Bedecked in jewels
With golden promises
Luscious lips oozing honey tones
You’re the heartbreaker
Dream maker
Streets littered with stories
Like infinite confetti
Carelessly tossed about
As a chosen few             
Unlock your glories…

© Su

day 5 | 19 July 2011
Continue reading...
 

the ones that go unnoticed by Bulumko Nyamezele

Posted by Poetry Potion on Friday, August 19, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

His stride covered years of ‘impossibility’ 
with veils greatness 
as his footprints birthed 
a procession of protégés 
prostrated beneath statues 
that epitomized the will 
of his ambitions. 

Tales of a better future 
were scrolls etched on his lifelines 
when he recited a past fallacy 
which now acts as the sleeves 
that we have written our constitution on 
from the shadows of his wrinkled heart.

His words were hymns for the aggravated 
and ritual chants for ripe fetuses.
Out of his soul we mold bla...

Continue reading...
 
 

Recent Posts