National Poetry Month: Poetry Cubed (Contest!)

We’re almost halfway through National Poetry Month, so I thought it was time to get rolling with a 2-week contest I’m holding here in my little corner of the web. I’m hoping this will be fun for everyone who participates…and I have some special books to offer as prizes!

If you’ve ever spent more than 5 minutes watching The Food Network, chances are you have seen the hugely popular show, “Chopped!” In this reality-TV game show, four chefs battle each other by trying to create the best dishes they can using specific ingredients given to them in a special basket.

For example, for the first round, the chefs might have to create appetizers using pickled eggs, lemongrass, artichokes, and jelly beans. No, I’m not kidding; the ingredients are very often that bizarre. The dishes are critiqued by a panel of judges and the chef with the least appealing dish drops out; the three remaining chefs then move on to round two, the last two move on to round three, and the final chef gets to claim victory.

So for this contest, I’ve taken the basic premise of the TV show and applied it to poetry – but without the dejected countenances and broken dreams. I call it “Poetry…Cubed!” Here’s how it works:

• Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) below as inspiration to write a poem. (simple so far, yes?)
• The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not. (also simple, yes?)
• The only hitch is that you need to include a reference to all three images in the poem – either via concrete imagery or something more abstract. (Heck, it’s poetry, so feel free to stretch the boundaries!)
• Then email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here on Tue., April 28. Out of all the poems entered, two lucky writers will be chosen at random to receive their choice of the brand-new Poetry Friday Anthology for Celebrations (Pomelo Books) or the self-help book Psychoetry: Lessons in Poetic Parenting by Brian P. Wohlmuth, whom I interviewed last week.

Keep in mind, I can only format poems to a small degree – so if possible, try to refrain from lots of unusual breaks and text placement. I’ll do my best to format your poem per your wishes, but WordPress will only allow me to do so much; blogging platforms aren’t known for being particularly poetry-friendly!

Now…without any further ado…here are your three images:

A theatre, a bee and flowers, and a toy monster truck. (Feel free to click any of the images to enlarge them) Think you can make something delicious out of these three ingredients? I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

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Irene Latham’s annual Progressive Poem continues to grow! A different writer adds a line each day, and today it’s Renee LaTulippe’s turn to lead our heroine on her journey. Then on April 30, Yours Truly will add the final line. No pressure at all…

You can follow the 2015 Progressive Poem at the following blog spots:

1 Jone at Check it Out
2 Joy at Poetry for Kids Joy
3 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe
4 Laura at Writing the World for Kids
5 Charles at Poetry Time Blog
6 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
7 Catherine at Catherine Johnson
8 Irene at Live Your Poem
9 Mary Lee at Poetrepository
10 Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty
11 Kim at Flukeprints
12 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
13 Doraine at DoriReads
14 Renee at No Water River
15 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
16 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
17 Buffy at Buffy’s Blog
18 Sheila at Sheila Renfro
19 Linda at Teacher Dance
20 Penny at A Penny and her Jots
21 Tara at A Teaching Life
22 Pat at Writer on a Horse
23 Tamera at The Writer’s Whimsy
24 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
25 Tabatha at The Opposite of indifference
26 Brian at Walk the Walk
27 Jan at Bookseedstudio
28 Amy at The Poem Farm
29 Donna at Mainely Write
30 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme

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