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

through a poem, through me by Bulumko ka Nyamezele

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

words restructuring my dna,
modifying my heart-beats
and synchronizing my Being with time
as alphabetical cuticles massage my prostrated mind
with messages from the ground that presents me.

i feel a curse that has learnt how to conjure up blessings
from dead pages onto history's deserted crevices,
denied passages from a broken lineage
that defines breaths in metaphors
to remind me what I matter for.

the truth renaming my lies
with lines thumping chants
that haunt my reality
and mount moral billboards
on...
Continue reading...
 

Feel this Poem by Zac Zion

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

Slicing syllables of the Capital S
Incisions by sorrowful scissors
Bleeding feeling you can see meaning
The eyes are in sight but the sound is deaf
The heart feels right as the mind swings left

Sliced syllables cut my tongue on the S
Precision by meaning I just want to cut it
To bleed feeling so you can see my meaning
I'm in your sight but I fall on your deaf(ness)
My heart feels right my minds been left
Left on this bleeding feeling
I felt this poem


© Zac Zion

day 1 | 15 August 2011
 
short bio: An alte...
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Speak by Su...

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : The Poet's Albatross 

A hot coal burns my mouth
Setting my thoughts aflame
As my senses fluently reel
Being one who over-feels
No longer able to contain
The truths my soul reveal
The poets bane is to tame
Life with words... 


© Saurell Boyers

day 3 | 21 July 2011

Continue reading...
 

Time flew effectively well by Aubrey Mgwenya

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : The Poet's Albatross 

Time flew effectively well.
And the pride of man restored indeed.
The journey has been embezzled by hope.
The poet stood on his writing consign, 
With the belief that one day, his mind and pen
Will speak the melody of his dreams, 
His poetry seeks a home to dwell.
And his mind contented with love to feed. 
Nobody wills to read his outlook and cope.
Nobody sing and dance unto his assign.
But still he trust that, with the honor of the ten-
Commandments, he shall stand with his arms-
High in the sky with de...

Continue reading...
 

heavy by zamantungwa

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : The Poet's Albatross 

on my mind
clamouring to escape
a truth, a lie, a prophesy

but a word
out of place, out of sync
the claps, the raps, the traps

pen won't ink
the page the words escape
and the poet's albatross unable to lift off

© zamantungwa

day 3 | 21 July 2011

Continue reading...
 
 

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