by Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond Wickham

Hang onto your witch’s hats, kiddies, we’re in for a ride! This month’s Poetry Mini-Challenge is “the body,” and we’re going to stick with it for a while: seven days to be exact! You can take your body poems anywhere you’d like, but since it’s October, the most wonderfully grotesque month, why not make your writing a little twisted? Get a little blood and guts on your typing fingers.

Transform into a monster (your own version of a werewolf) or play Frankenstein and build a monster (or seven of them). Explore the workings of the body, not rhetorically, but as though you are scooping out a pumpkin. You don’t have to take this in a guy-with-chainsaw-horror-flick direction (though you could). The mystery and spirit of Halloween — and the body — can be just as delightful as they can be frightening.

How it works
Every day for seven days (yes, seven!), write a poem about the body in the context of October, whatever that conjures up for you. We know seven days is a challenge, but “challenge” is in the title of this series, after all, and here’s what we’re thinking: Let’s make a big poetry push this month before the holy-crap-it’s-nearly-the-holidays (aka November) procrastination kicks in.

As you write, visit the forums for the October Poetry Mini-Challenge. They will be marked #1, #2, #3 and so on — one for each poem you write for this challenge. Jump into the forums and post links to your poems (or the text of the poems themselves if you don’t have a blog). Try to make it all the way to #7 and visit the forums to cheer each other on.

About the poetry mini-challenge
If you’ve signed on to Read Write Poem recently or if you missed the other challenges, you’re welcome to visit the original post for background.

Here’s the short version: a mini-challenge is a poetry-writing, poetry-reading or poetry-process prompt that you respond to with a new poem each day for a set number of days. The idea isn’t to warm up the poetry muscles, it’s to feel the burn. Go deeper. Explore further. Pass the place you may have stopped initially. See what comes next. And as if that weren’t juicy enough, you do all of it with the support and encouragement of the other crazy hardworking Read Write Poem members who take on the challenge.

Note: Please save the comments section of this post for discussion on or questions about the process. The poems and links go in the forums associated with the Poetry Mini-Challenge group, located here.

Carolee Sherwood is a painter, mixed-media artist and poet. This moody mother of three boys shares her writing at her site, Carolee Sherwood, and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.

Jill Crammond Wickham has discovered that the frantic pace of motherhood has driven her to write more, not less. Jill writes at Mom Trying to Write and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.

by Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond Wickham

It’s September! We can’t believe summer is over, and we can’t believe it’s time already for our second poetry mini-challenge! (If you’ve signed on to Read Write Poem in the last few weeks or if you missed the first challenge, you’re welcome to visit the original post for background.)

The short version
A mini-challenge is a poetry-writing, poetry-reading or poetry-process prompt that you respond to each day for a set number of days. The idea isn’t to warm up the poetry muscles, it’s to feel the burn. Go deeper. Explore further. Pass the place you may have stopped initially. See what comes next. And as if that weren’t juicy enough, you do all of it with the support and encouragement of the other crazy hardworking Read Write Poem members who take on the challenge.

This month’s mini-challenge
Eavesdrop. Put yourself in places where you can overhear other people’s conversations: buses, coffee shops, grocery stores, waiting areas. Tune in to engines running, dishes clanking, papers shuffling. Mother Nature is fair game, too. Listen to the noises she’s making as the seasons gear up for a change. Keep a notebook on hand so you can grab all sorts of sounds and words (including full lines of dialogue) throughout your day.

Every day for five days, write a poem inspired by the sounds and voices you’ve noted. Whenever you can, infuse your writing with sound — help us hear what you hear how you hear it. Engage our ears! If you want to, you can write your five poems as a series, or you can write five poems that have nothing to do with one another.

As you write, visit the forums for the September Poetry Mini-Challenge. They’re marked #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 — one for each poem you write for this challenge. Jump into the forums and post links to your poems (or the text of the poems themselves if you don’t have a blog). Try to make it all the way to #5 and visit the forums to cheer each other on.

Note: Please save the comments section of this post for discussion on or questions about the process. The poems and links go in the forums associated with the Poetry Mini-Challenge group, located here.

Carolee Sherwood is a painter, mixed-media artist and poet. This moody mother of three boys shares her writing at her site, Carolee Sherwood, and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.

Jill Crammond Wickham has discovered that the frantic pace of motherhood has driven her to write more, not less. Jill writes at Mom Trying to Write and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.

by Carolee Sherwood and Jill Crammond Wickham

When you were a kid and another kid said, “I dare you,” your brain went into overdrive about the task, something you weren’t sure if you should do or could do, but certainly wouldn’t do under any other circumstances. Kiss a boy on the lips. Jump naked into a snowbank. Eat a mud pie. The (in)advisability of these acts was unimportant. What mattered was guts! What mattered was glory! You were tempted! You were exhilarated! But you were wavering.

Then came one of the hardest adolescent challenges to resist: the double-dog dare. If you had any pride at all and another kid said, “I double-dog dare you,” your fate was sealed. You would do The Thing. The Anything. You would do it with the world watching, and you would be victorious. You would have a reputation as a badass. No matter what. And, perhaps even of more value, you would see yourself differently. You would be the one who wasn’t afraid. And that meant something to you.

You could also wind up the one with cooties on her lips, the one with hypothermia and the one with a mouthful of dirt. Rising to a challenge is not without risk.

Poetry Mini-Challenges are like this. Take a wild act. (Write three poems or seven poems or 30.) Intensify it. (Write one each day.) Make it public. (Be accountable! Defend your honor!) But poetry challenges are better because you have company. Other people are suffering right along with you. You know, suffering in a good way, as in “suffering for his art.”

How we got here

A few years ago, we tried National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) together. Jill got to about day 10 and searched for some poetry to put into her novel-in-progress, and Carolee wrote paragraph after paragraph in search of a more lyrical way to tell a story. We both realized that novel-writing was interrupting our poetry-writing. We were poets, not novelists.

Then along came National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). We were amazed — not with how easy it became to write a poem every day, but with how a new idea was born every day. Wow! If you sit down to write it, it will come. It was true! Six months later, we spent all of October writing a poem each day. And six months after that, we were back at it with NaPoWriMo again.

In the “dare” analogy, NaNoWriMo and NaPoWriMo represent the triple-dog dare. In “real life,” it’s not always possible to be so obsessed or so compulsive. Still, we knew we thrived inside some sort of compression, and we began teaming up to meet smaller goals, double-dog dares — mini-challenges, if you will. They help us put dry periods behind us. Neither of us believes in writer’s block, but we do know that sometimes it’s hard to write.

Lucky for us, we have (in each other) an awesome writing buddy who sets goals and sends us off and running. (Take that, selfish muse!) Lucky for all of us, we have an awesome writing community here at Read Write Poem that can do the same thing.

What we’re going to do

The good news is that none of the Poetry Mini-Challenges will kill you (unlike, perhaps, contracting cooties, getting hypothermia and ingesting soil of questionable origin). On the other hand, not writing feels a little like death. Your choice is clear!

We’ll create mini-challenges related to writing poetry, reading poetry or firming up your writing process, and we’ll post them as often as Read Write Poem dares to let us out of the barn. You’ll work through the challenge on your blog and keep us updated with links and notes in the comments section of the current challenge. And, of course, you’ll zip around to your fellow Read Write Poem members and offer your encouragement (and egg them on as necessary).

Our first mini-challenge

Research synonyms for “unearth” or “dig” or “cull.” Pick one you like. It will be the title of your series.

Now, with the images conjured by your series title swirling in your mind, go through your notebook and find a subject for a poem. If you don’t keep a notebook, sift through any book or paper or magazine, preferably something in print. Digging is a physical act.

Do this every day for three days, starting today. You will end up with three poems that may (or may not) be related to one another or to the matter of uncovering something, but they will be three poems you didn’t have before. And you shall be known henceforth as the one who is not afraid!

Update: You can leave your comments, progress notes, poems, links to the mini-challenge work you are doing on your site and words of encouragement in the comments of this post. Or (if you are a member), you can leave them at the Poetry Mini-Challenge group, located here.

Carolee Sherwood is a painter, mixed-media artist and poet. This moody mother of three boys shares her writing at her site, Carolee Sherwood, and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.

Jill Crammond Wickham has discovered that the frantic pace of motherhood has driven her to write more, not less. Jill writes at Mom Trying to Write and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.