Hashtag with poetry prompts from Kim Addonizio.

So much cruelty is framed as truth-telling on social media. #hottakefromhell I’m studying myself in the frame of social media posts, learning about this woman named Alina whose performance of perfection is stippled with protests to the contrary. #hownottoparent I’m a frame within a frame of competitive marketing in a publishing industry increasingly reliant on authors to hustle their books or mothers to worship their children or grandparents to repost cringe-worthy memes. #therealme doesn’t believe in competing for human relatives and attention but I have so many friends who #tribe, and I'm beguiled by new apps that commodify the market of self-improvement metrics which give us a sense of control by marking tiny achievements. Socialized early by school grades and tests, do we ever outgrow that training to display how well we’re doing? #performativewellbeing correlates with inflatable ego, which others evaluate on the basis of the size of the inflatable jumper one can afford for a child’s birthday party. #whocares #hashtageachheart #signifysomething #googleityrself

#poetryexercisesfromKimAddonizio

  1. Find a line by someone else and look for different nouns or adjectives beginning with the same letter as the line. Play with substitutions.

  2. Write a poem for the end of something with "lost" in the title. See "Lost Poem" by Ted Berrigan.

  3. Name a specific time or place in your title and then write a poem about it.

  4. Write ten openings that begin in media res.

  5. Write a poem to the future modeled on Brecht's "To Those Born Later" or Ruth Stone's "Look to the Future."

  6. "Jot down a list of things you see around you and fall recklessly in love with all of them."

  7. Make a list of 50 favorite words and write a poem with them. Then experiment with framing by adding in words from a cookbook or a how-to text.

  8. Write a lyrical list poem like A. Van Jordan's "afterglow" which uses slashes to build pauses through a string of associations.

  9. Anaphora is the repetition of an opening word or phrase. Write one that borrows "but" or "the bluest".

  10. Write a poem that repeats the last word or phrase of a line in the beginning of the next line.

  11. Article, adjective, noun: article, adjective, noun, verb, adverb.

  12. Write an opening sentence. Now change period to comma and add "as if" or"because" or etc or although.