Mary Pierce Brosmer
Mary Pierce Brosmer
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POETRY GIRL Writing Prompts

These 14 ideas for writing are based on incidents and events that take place in the story of POETRY GIRL. You may write to each possibility or select four or five of them to write about in your own journal. Will you share them with a friend, a teacher or parent? Do you already enjoy being a “Poetry Girl?” Have fun!

These writing possibilities were suggested by Mary Pierce Brosmer after reading the poem-play POETRY GIRL. Pierce Brosmer taught “Writing” to high school students for many years and founded Women Writing for (a) Change in Cincinnati in 1991. That same year, Pierce Brosmer established Consulting for (a) Change.


“Forever is composed of nows”
- Emily Dickinson

14 POETRY GIRL Writing Prompts

Poetry Girl Writing Prompts PDF file

1. Choose one day and write down a series of “now” moments as the day unfolds. Now make your list into a poem.

2. Street Names. Poetry Girls love the names of things. Write down a list of street names around your house or apartment. See if you can find the stories behind the names and create a story map, or a poem made of street names and their stories.

3. Pet Stories. Write a story about each of your pets and/ or your friends’ pets. How did the pet come to live with you? How or why did they get away? Write a poem for a pet’s funeral.

4. Hiding poems. Annie’s Dad writes little poems about ordinary things and hides them around the house. Try this and see what happens! You could write poems and hide around your school as well. Make sure the poems are ones that will create happiness and kindness in the world.

5. Kelly’s nightmare. Write down your bad dreams and your good dreams. Make poems of them! (Why do you think Kelly has nightmares? Why do you think you have nightmares?).

6. “Towhead” Keep a list of words that you don’t know the meaning of. Make up definitions for the words, then look up their real meanings and put this all together into a funny poem.

7. Chapter 5. Kelly gets slapped for what others do. There is a saying: “hurt people hurt people.” What is the hurt that Jerry is carrying? Is it ok to take it out on Kelly? Write about someone doing this to you or you hurting someone because you are hurting?

8. The Secret. What is the secret that Annie finds out, and how does she find out? Do you know any secrets? Do you have any secrets? What are some of the reasons people have secrets?

9. Unfair! Write a list of all the unfair things you know about: up close and in the wider world.

10. Teachers. Write about a nice teacher like Annie’s Dad, and about a mean teacher like Sister Mary Eileen.

11. Philomena. Many neighborhoods or apartment buildings have a mysterious person. Philomena is that person in Pleasant Ridge. Do you know someone like this? Write a pretend-letter from that person to you.

12. Homeplace. Annie loves to go to the family homeplace in Kentucky. Write about your homeplace, or make up a story about an imagined homeplace.

13. Family. Get out a box of old family photos and make up stories about the people in the pictures.

14. Apart. As years go by, Annie and Kelly grow apart. Why? Has this happened between you and some of your friends? Write about the friendship and the events that put distance between the friends.

Copyright 2017 by N.J. Jones