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

Ou vrou by Afrikavrou

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

Haar asem kan die revolusie begin
as sy net wou, as sy net kon...
maar die doofstomheid
van jare se verdwaal....
het haar kom haal
en sy sit verdwaas in 'n grougrys land
bomskok verys, bomskok geraas

haar asem kan die revolusie begin
as sy net wou, as sy net kon...
maar wat sal haar weer oppluk opruk
uit bomskok depressie tot groot geluk
kleinkinders se klokkie laggies?
'n dogter wat haar saggies
vashou,vasdruk
maar dan sak sy weer terug  
met 'n grougrys sug...

haar asem kan die revolusie ...
Continue reading...
 

Breathless by Verity Maud

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

Her breath could start a revolution
Her Chez Guevara eyes
And the size of her sighs
Mobilize voluptuous armies
Causing chaos
In the battles of my imaginings,
Marching to the drum of desire
And lighting bonfires
Burning my best intentions to the ground.

Her breath could start a revolution
But it's her hipsthat revolve around venus
In wild orbit
Sending galaxies spinning,
Launching rockets and Catherine wheels.

Her breath DID start a revolution
When it carried her words
Murmered breathless
Conscripting my curi...
Continue reading...
 

Free-From-Doom by Su

Posted by Poetry Potion on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

I am, the Oracle
Whose words branch out
To touch the heavens and beyond
My leaves, flowers and seeds
Burst forth, coherently beckoning
Plucked and carried by the unchained wind
 
Caught in the chant and soulful songs
Of the growing discontented throng
Marching, dreaming, crafting
Freedom
From phantom liberties
Declared in law books
Yet hardly felt or owned
By those starving, weeping, harassed
Crushed in pockets across the globe
 
I plant in loving expectation
For you to reap
Free – from- D...
Continue reading...
 

I Feel a Poem Inside by D'Afropolitana

Posted by Poetry Potion on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

I feel a poem inside
centenarian and leeway,

sounding fearful voice
writhing to survive.

I feel a poem inside
untameable riving gun
of criminal-words bullets
unwilling to compromise.

My emotional involution has now been whipped.
I feel a poem inside.

© D'Afropolitana 

day 1 | 15 August 2011

short bio: Has a BA in Caribbean Studies with Spanish and Latinamerican Studies (main subject: Postcolonial Literature). Writing and Photography are my two hobbies for creative work. Spain.


Continue reading...
 

Borrel by Afrikavrou

Posted by Poetry Potion on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 In : Don Mattera Week 

Ek voel 'n gedig hier binne my
ek wens ek kan dit skryf
en my drang bevry

Ek voel 'n gedig in my siel opkook
dit brand soos 'n lig van pretensie gestroop
dit kielie en kruip teen my bewussyn op
en sluip deur my vingers tot in my pen se loop
dit lek deur swart ink tot op wit papier
en kriewel en stoei van daar vêr tot hier
 
Ek voel 'n gedig van onder af borrel
dit dans en dit dartel soos 'n stof korrel
dit sypel osmoties deur my weerstand wat
vreesaanjaend al my rympies terg en tart
maar hierdie ene gly...
Continue reading...
 
 

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