 Free Write PromptTell me about how you played as a child. Tell me about board games. Tell me about your toys. Write for 10 minutes. Poem PromptWrite a poem, from your adult point of view, on what those games, toys, or that playtime taught you about life. Use the elements of the game as metaphorical lessons in your poem. Write for 15 minutes. Example Poems
Something Extra
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 Detail of "American Crow" by John James Audubon, from BIRDS OF AMERICA, recently made available in digital download from the Audubon society Free Write PromptTell me about a bird you have known :: a bird you admire :: a spirit animal bird. Write for 10 minutes. Poem PromptWrite a poem with the bird as the subject: from the bird’s point of view, an homage to the bird, speaker interacting with the bird, the bird as metaphor. Write for 15 minutes; use details from your free write. Example Poems
Something ExtraThis week's session is inspired by the closing week of #WriteOut 2019 , nature poets Mary Oliver and Ted Hughes, and the 453 newly released images of John James Audubon's BIRDS OF AMERICA. Made available by the National Audubon Society. They are simply stunning, and I had forgotten what an amazing gift this whole collection and body of research and narration is. While replicating physical features with uncanny veracity, he incorporated narrative elements and aesthetic touches that not only made birds come alive in their natural environments, but also lifted the images to the status of fine art. --Audubon Center at Mill Grove
You can search the collection of bird images by state or alphabetically. Each featured page includes a close up detail of the original plate, a link to a high resolution image of the original plate, and Audubon's writing on the bird and the circumstances of his rendering the bird. And while you're exploring, check out the Audubon Mural Project in New York City, and the numerous short clips about the artists and their respective bird paintings, such as the peregrine falcon below!
Which is your bird? Share lines of your prose or poetry in the comments. 
Free Write Prompt
WriteOut, a National Writing Project challenge, is all about place-based learning and connecting. Getting out of doors and interacting with the national parks, rediscovering your own places again, and writing about all of it. In company with the crowdsourced project at WriteOut -- Tell me about where you are from: the place, objects, ancestors and their traits, traditions, challenges, fun times, food. Draw on all five senses. Ready? Go.
Poem Prompt
Write at least 3 stanzas of an “I Am From” poem. Use you most vivid lines, avoid cliches, try to employ as many of the categories suggested in the free write. Repeatedly use the phrase “I Am From”
Our "Crowdsourced" Poem
In real time, our international group of writers contributed individual lines in a chat-post section. In lines entered only split seconds apart, the collaborative poem began to take shape, showing qualities of landscapes and places and people that have defined each of us -- and showing the common threads that bind us. To preserve the perfect, real-time randomness of the collaboration, minimal editing was done.
Example Poem
Something Extra
A few months ago, on National Public Radio, writer/poet Kwami Alexander and radio host Rachel Martin crowdsourced a version of 'Where I'm From' from listeners, asking them to send in their poems or lines of their memories of home. Alexander then remixed the submissions, and they read the collaborative poem on air.
PoetryBones invites you to add your lines in the comment section!
Did you know the Hunter's Moon can happen in October or November? That's because it is one of only two moon names not tied to a month and its required activities. The Hunter's Moon specifically follows the Harvest Moon (which is closest to the autumn equinox). So, depending on when the equinox occurs, the Hunter's Moon will follow appropriately in either of the two months. According to The Old Farmer's Almanac: The earliest use of the term “Hunter’s Moon” cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1710. Some sources suggest that other names for the Hunter’s Moon are the Sanguine or Blood Moon, either associated with the blood from with hunting or the turning of the leaves in autumn. Some Native American tribes, who tied the full Moon names to the season’s activities, called the full Moon the “Travel Moon” and the “Dying Grass Moon.”  Poet Thomas Lux describes a night SO bright . . .  "The Night So Bright A Squirrel Reads" first appeared in the December 1980 issue of POETRY Magazine.
Bonus Writing Prompts:
 Image by Pexels | Pixabay Free Write PromptTell me about a supernatural occurrence. Tell me about ghosts you have known. Tell me something mystical you experienced though facts seem to deny its possibility. Poem PromptLet "poetry proliferate in the intellectual blind spot." The goal is to write a poem that captures the mood of the experience, the imagery of the phenomenon, the visceral reaction of the experience in your senses. You do not have to make sense of the experience, only to let “poetry reside in the recess of the mystery." Fictionalize whatever you like. (Quote excerpts from Christina Pugh's essay "On Ghosts and the Overplus." See link below.) (OR) Fictionalize what you need to, to write a gripping, good ole ghost story poem. Example Poems
 Louise Erdrich, "Windigo" from Jacklight (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1984). Copyright 1984 by Louise Erdrich. Something Extra
 Green-Wood Cemetery | Brooklyn, NY |
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Christine curates the POETRY BONES blog and hosts the weekly live writing practice. Contact her with inquiries.
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