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

June 16 2011 by Su

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : 16 June 2011 

A dusty gust of wind 
In a dry cold June 
I look at the remnants of you 
The stone-throwers 

As I confidently stride 
On a cobbled highway 
Laid by your discontent 
Complacent 

As the infinite choices 
And countless vices 
Of freedom hem me in 
Striving to be your dream
  

© Saurell Boyers...

day 9 | 16 June 2011

Continue reading...
 

Unification by Reitumetse Johnson

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : 16 June 2011 

I saw flesh and emotion unite
I felt them breathe in a synchronised fashion
They became one and in this divine being
Emerged self acceptance.
As the picture became clearer..
The smoke screen faded and
I saw her...
Her that my eyes explored
Her blessed with beautiful offspring 
The energy around her is strongly felt
As if she is within us.
I saw humanity complementing femininity
I touched self love
I observed her harmonious, reserved nature
And was partly blinded by a tender smile.
I saw delicacy and fragili...

Continue reading...
 

Hades by Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : Life and Death 

I asked to see Mommy
corporeal
please, bring her back to this dimension
it has been seven years 
to many for my tears
 
I do not want to see her in a dream 
or imagine her
I don’t want her transparent touch
or at a table of spiritualist mediums
playing Ouija
or recreating her as a hologram
no ghost in the afternoon, please
no talking through some babalawo
Hadēs, and Ἅιδης
reply my desire
I want to see her for real
 
I do not asked for peace 
or a tranquility island
breeze for the baby and the donor
solut...

Continue reading...
 

Were it Mine by Saurell Boyers

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : Life and Death 

Were it mine to count your days
Preset all the ways 
Your life could twist and turn
This event, I would delete or burn
As your breathing slowly dies down
The scavenger crowd lingers on, curiously
Grotesquely, your life ceases abruptly
In my mind echo your last words 
A tremulous, fearful, “Help me!”

Were it mine, to decide your fate
I’d drown their hate with love


© Saurell Boyers

day 8 | 15 June 2011

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Life and Death by Carol Ronaldson

Posted by Poetry Potion on Saturday, August 13, 2011 In : Life and Death 

The living dead
they walk among us
wake up
take a breath,
go to work
go on tea
go on lunch,
go home
go to hell,
then back again,
every single day.
 
They are the invisible ones
we pass on our way,
automatons
hiding the pain,
hiding the bruises
hiding the hurt
hiding the shame,
making noise
that form words
yet are soundless,
made in vain.
 
The living dead 
they walk among us
wake up
take a breath,
go to work
go on tea
go on lunch,
go home
go to hell,
then back again, 
every single day.

© Carol Ronaldson

day 8 | 15 Julie 2011
...
Continue reading...
 
 

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