A Quick Shout-Out to The Poetry Instigator

The mention of poet Fred Chappell in my previous post (I’m working through his enjoyable but more-challenging-than-I’d-expected new collection, Shadow Box) reminded me that I’ve been remiss is calling attention to a new blog by some of the fine folks at George Mason University. MFA poets Lucy Biederman, Eleanor S. Tipton, and Alison Strub have recently started “The Poetry Instigator,” a site which offers up regular writing prompts and then works submitted by writers responding to those prompts. A great idea — and fiction writers, don’t fear: You may find inspiration here as well. The most recent prompt, for example, is inspired by the Baltimore-based journal Smartish Pace and encourages works that are both “narrative AND fragmentary, storyteller-ish and lyric.” The challenge here: ” This week, write a poem that tells a story, but incorporate non-narrative elements into the poem –whether through form, sentence structure, voice, or anything else.” (Fiction writers, just substitute “write a flash” for “write a poem,” and you’re set.)

The site — quick attractive in its design, I should mention — also features discussions and interviews, and it promises great things to come.

And speaking of interviews, be sure to check in again with another great poetry blog previously mentioned in these posts: Brian Brodeur’s How A Poem Happens, featuring weekly interviews with poets reflecting on their own works.