by Carolee Sherwood
This Read Write Prompt is brought to you in two easy steps: (1) make lists and (2) turn one or more of those lists into a poem.
The lists: What do you believe (or not believe)?
You are going to make four lists (or fewer if you believe in doing your own thing):
#1. Make a list of 10 things you believe or believe in.
#2. Pick one thing on that list and identify 10 concrete examples. Be creative with this part of the list-making. If you choose to elaborate on a belief about something intangible (love, God, magic, etc.), connect everyday occurrences to your belief: a silver bucket that overflows with rain water, strangers sitting side-by-side on a bench, what a tree does when it emerges from winter.
#3. Make a list of 10 things you don’t believe or believe in.
#4. Pick one thing from this list to describe with 10 concrete examples (the reasons why you don’t believe, the evidence against something).
The poem
You’re done jumping through hoops. This part is all you! Use your lists to inspire a poem. It can be a list-poem if you’re not tired of hearing the word list (list, list, list, list!), but it doesn’t have to be. Your lists (lists, lists, lists, lists!) may have inspired a tangent. If so, feel free to follow it. You may comprise your poem from bits of all four lists or you may hone in on one list or one list item.
You may even abandon the theme — What do you believe? — when you write your poem. The goal of starting with this theme is that you’ll strike upon something at your core, something fundamental to who you are in the world. Once you’ve found it, or a piece of it, run with it! Run, poets! Run!
Enjoy this week’s prompt, and come back next Thursday where you can leave a link or a poem in the comments to our Get Your Poem On post. 
Carolee Sherwood is a poet and artist who lives in Upstate New York. She is co-editor of Ouroboros Review, mother of three boys and a veteran Read Write Poem columnist. You can find her rambling about the creative life at Carolee Sherwood and drafting poems at I Am Maureen.
I posted my poem today on my blog. Will wait until next Thursday to provide link. Thank you for this prompt, Carolee.
Wow. This has the makings of some soulful poetry. THANK YOU for this prompt.
I so enjoy how one prompt can come up with something that feels fanciful and a bit whimsical and this week, I am called to something so soulful, sacred.
And yet, they both are soulful and sacred in different ways.
THANK YOU!
Carolee,wonderful prompt!
This looks like a good time! I haven’t been able to write in awhile due to a crazy schedule resulting in stress and lack of inspiration. Thanks for helping to get my writing wheels turning again…
Carolee, this is going to be a great one! I can’t wait to see what everybody comes up with here. Thanks a lot!
i’m glad you like it! i have started working on my lists. it’s harder than i thought it would be! perhaps i’m thinking too much.
Good idea. I haven’t done lists in a while.
[...] notes: Carolee of Read Write Poem wanted us to do four lists: One list is of ‘what we believe’ and from that generate 10 [...]
believe
can have various meaning
when i look @ the word be is the first;
lie is the second; eve is the third;
in the traditional sense it is the knowledge of knowing;
hence be lie yes we all lie n or 2 eve umm the most intricate part of ones day or eve as n adam & eve.
In the realm of it all i know we exist therefore we be. Yes we lie we all need our rest or rather time 2 rejuvenate. Yes i enjoy the eve i enjoy being eve.
[...] In Uncategorized on February 23, 2010 by nellelytle among the things that I do/do not believe [...]
[...] also wrote it for Read Write Poem Prompt #115: What Do You Believe? I cheated a little, and didn’t make a list, BUT I know I believe heavily in the concept of [...]
I believe in making love, strongly! http://ofheart.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/love-sanctified/
rallentanda replied:
February 25th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Or even not so vigorously.Good for you!
[...] only on the floor above I don't believe height or sleep's the real these written in response to read write prompt 115: what do you believe? Spread the [...]
[...] February 28, 2010 by rhiannonproblematising Read Write Prompt #115 [...]