March Poetry Prompt Calendar

Here are 31 poetry prompts for the month of March to keep the creative juices flowing (because I want to nurture a creative practice in you, stranger, subscriber, writer, Substack wanderer, loved one) (because potential is potent) (because I love you) (because nudge).

It’s been a real source of excitement and joy for me to produce and curate these prompt lists for you, and sweeter than you’ll ever know whenever I hear that the poems are being written!

I met a stranger at a party a couple of months ago who told me she subscribed to despair, you cannot have me and had taken one of the prompts to a dinner party with a little stack of notecards and everyone at the dinner party did the prompt together and shared their poems at the table.

I recommend bringing poetry prompts to a dinner party, y’all. There are 31 to choose from right here.

Please feel welcome to share your poems in the despair, you cannot have me chat and/or in the comments!

For additional writing prompts and ideas you can check out the December, January, and February lists, or you can just be where your feet are and follow along here day by day.

Good luck. Godspeed. Happy March.

1. Ask yourself, “am I enough?” Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. Write a poem in which each line is a reason why the answer is yes.

2. Read Kaveh Akbar’s “Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards”. Notice how the poem is about loss but until the very end, in the final line, that isn’t overtly obvious. Still somehow in the nonsensicality of orchids sprouting from floorboards and growing in trees and teenagers texting on orchid-phones, the grief at the end makes sense—because grief and loss are totally ridiculous, they make no sense, they’re impossible and bizarre. Choose one thing—a flower, an object, a place—and model a poem after “Orchids…”. Be sure to add the epigraph, “after Kaveh Akbar”.

3. Read “I Cleaned the House.” by francine j. harris. Notice the places where she uses a period in the middle of a line, but the line keeps going. Notice the places where the punctuation leaves and then comes back (“…strands of slivering into a splinter / so thin so thin you couldn’t see.”) Write a poem that uses punctuation in surprising ways. Throw in a period where you would otherwise think a period doesn’t belong. If you’re about to add a comma, maybe don’t add it but keep the line going so the words fall into each other (“so thin so thin”). Play around with how it all sounds. And while you’re at it, throw a period in with your title.

4. In William Stafford’s “The Light by the Barn”, repetition and pattern propel the poem forward gently but steadily. Notice how the couplets begin and end. Notice how the final line contains the same image that the poem starts with. Notice how the final couplet contains all three images from the second and third couplets. This simple little poem is like an equation/word problem. Write a poem called “The Light in the Kitchen” and follow the same image equation. (Remember the epigraph.)

5. Write a poem that includes these words: tend, shell, compost, hollyhock, bioluminescent, and bay.

6. Write a poem about a time you didn’t know what to do.

7. Choose a myth or a story and rewrite it. Consider “impolite mythology” by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi. Notice how she takes a well-known character (Eve) and turns the narrative around her on its side, makes a shame story about joy. Do this. You might be feeling brave and decide to rewrite an Odyssean tale, but it could be as simple as a well-known fairytale or nursery rhyme. It doesn’t need to be sexy. It just needs to be turned sideways a little. Make it surprising. Bonus points if you give the poem a cool shape.

8. Write a poem as though you are writing a postcard you are going to send. It could be from a real place or from a different kind of place—an imagined place, a dream place. Read “Postcard to I. Kaminsky from a Dream at the Edge of the Sea” by Cecilia Woloch for inspiration.

9. Write a factoid poem—a poem that begins with a scientific, social, or emotional fact. Any fact. Let the fact lead you somewhere. Look at the way the poet David Ignatow is led in his poem “Information”.

10. Set a timer for 8 minutes. Don’t lift your pen from the paper (or stop typing, whatever is most comfortable for you) until the timer goes off. Don’t think. Your starting phrase is “The sky seemed a little bit…”.

11. If you’ve been with me since January, you’ll remember this prompt. Write two short, separate, unrelated poems, 4-5 lines each. One describing a body of water you’re standing beside. One about a relative—a parent, a sibling, a child, or another relative (alternately, a person very dear to you—a lover, chosen family etc.) Once complete, stack the poems so the first line of one of the poems is first on the page, then the first line of the second poem is next. Weave them together in this way until you have one poem that contains two poems. You may consider weaving the poems again, so the second begins first. Notice what happens. Adjust as needed. It’s okay if the poem isn’t a success, it’s not about that, but you might be surprised by what “success” looks like.

12. Write a poem with each new line beginning with the word “and”. The lines may begin as brand-new sentences or they may be continuations of enjambed run-on sentences.

13. Read “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye. Think of a word—maybe gracious, or mysterious, or generous, or curious, or something that doesn’t end with -ous. Write a poem that defines that word like Nye’s poem defines the word “famous”. Consider the line “The river is famous to the fish”. Add the epigraph “after Naomi Shihab Nye”.

14. Think about something you’ve lost and write a eulogy for it. This could be a pattern or habit you outgrew, a place or home you left behind, a cherished item that was misplaced and never found again, a well that dried up, a job, a post office box key. This resource is helpful if you want to consider some of the formalities of writing a eulogy poem.

15. Write a poem about the word “yes”. What does “yes” even mean? How would you characterize it? Does it have a taste? What does it feel like? What is an example of “yes”? Consider making “Yes” your title.

16. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Is it the same kind of tree you would have been as a child? Write a poem answering both of these questions.

17. Read “Invitation” by Mary Oliver. Read it again. Write an invitation for something.

18. Write a poem that includes these words: tilt, wonder, oregano, April, wind, and built.

19. Write a poem about a time you were afraid and did it anyway.

20. Write a haiku. I’m talking the traditional 5-7-5 tercet. The linked Poem Analysis article says, “Haiku is a form of poetry that relies on simplicity and understatement”. Understatement! Read the article from top to bottom, even (especially!) if you think you know how to write a haiku. Some haiku I admire: “Haiku [for you]” by Sonia Sanchez and “Haiku 2” by Etheridge Knight.

21. Write a poem about a time you failed. Write about the good that came from that experience and what you learned from it without actually stating that you learned something.

22. Read David Shumate’s “An Inventory of Moons”. Think about something that, “if you live to be very old”, you too might see a lot of. Take inventory of that thing.

23. Read Lucille Clifton’s “racoon prayer”. Notice how she celebrates and lifts up the unbeloved scavenger. Write a short celebration poem inspired by Clifton’s poem about a scavenger. An opossum, a vulture, a rat, a raccoon, a butterfly, a skunk… or you? Are you a scavenger? Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like you were a scavenger, literally, figuratively, or emotionally? If you make the choice for this to be a harder poem, let it be that. And if you want this to be a quirky poem where you tackle your distaste for New York City rats, let it be that instead. Just remember to add the epigraph “after Lucille Clifton”.

24. Read three poems. Read them again. Write. This is a prompt taught to me by the poet Fran Quinn (you’ll know it if you’ve been following along, I seem to reintroduce it each month). He says to allow the thing that becomes alive between all three poems to be channeled into your own poem, which becomes the fourth poem. Here are three poems for your consideration: “my dream about the second coming” by Lucille Clifton, “Such Is the Story Made of Stubbornness and a Little Air” by Ilya Kaminsky, and “ode to the flute” by Ross Gay.

25. Write a poem that begins with the line, “There was more time than I thought…”.

26. Try to write a short, confusing little poem like Galway Kinnell’s “Prayer”. Read the poem a handful of times to help it stick.

27. Write an ekphrastic poem. Choose a piece of artwork in your home—a photograph, a painting, a print, a postcard or greeting card—and interact with it. An example: “The Starry Night” by Anne Sexton.

28. Write a poem about yourself as though you are someone you’ve known your whole life.

29. Write a pastoral poem. Romanticize the rural, romanticize a little dirt. Go for a walk in a quiet place or imagine doing so, take a deep breath outside, ask questions. Consider James Tate’s “The Definition of Gardening” and Rita Dove’s “Reverie in Open Air”, two very different poems. (Should you feel intrigued by the pastoral, here’s a nice long essay on it.)

30. Read “Another Antipastoral” by Vievee Francis. Look at how she pushes against the romanticism of the rural, simple life and how she rejects the simplification that pastorals appeal toward. Write an antipastoral poem that pushes against the poem you wrote yesterday.

31. Think of the last question somebody asked you. Was it for advice? Was it about the weather or for the time? Was it to check in on you? Was it a favor? Was it something that really didn’t feel good to be asked? Write a poem about the usefulness of questions. Include the question you were asked and the answer you gave, whether it was useful or not.

Poems I’m thinking about right now

• Gathering the Bones Together by Gregory Orr

• Aubade with Burning City by Ocean Vuong

• Black Sunflower by Bianca Stone

• Psalm for the Slightly Tilted by Ilya Kaminsky

• Becoming American by Dorsía Smith Silva

• Summer Solstice, New York City by Sharon Olds

• On Travelling to Beautiful Places by Mary Oliver

• I Remember the Carrots by Ada Limón

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