Poetry & wordplay21 categories
Where does a reader stumble?
You have read the draft fifty times and lost your ear.
Read this aloud in your head and name the three places a first-time reader stumbles, re-reads, or runs out of breath. Nothing else. Poem:
Making it yours
- Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
- Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
- If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.
Sound and metre. Rhymes, scansion, and the read-aloud passes that tell you why a line trips in the mouth.
Related prompts
Near-rhymes grouped by vowel soundYou need a rhyme and the obvious ones are all wrong or already used.Scan this poem and mark where the metre breaksA line reads wrong aloud and you can't tell whether it's the metre.Find a word that means X and fits the metreThe right word is one syllable too long and you've been staring at it.Sound pass: alliteration, assonance, mouthfeelA late-stage read purely for how the poem sounds aloud.Read this back to me for rhythmYou've lost your ear on a draft you've read fifty times.Rhymes for this word, useful ones onlyYou need a rhyme and want the real options, not a dictionary dump.
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