Gavin Bennett's Blog: 2015 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 16

For today’s prompt, write a haunted poem. You could write a poem about actual ghosts, floating orbs, and spookedy spooks. But many people are haunted by memories, mistakes, music, and too much alliteration (or is that just me?).

Whatever you’re haunted by, write it.

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Re-create Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!

In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at a Haunted poem:

“Jesse’s Ghost”

The shadow of Jesse Wilcox hung over the entire town
like a full moon black hole. The event horizon lurked
around every corner, down every alley, and in the sound
of leaves rustling in the wind or along empty sidewalks.

Kids avoided going to the park without their parents,
and the parents avoided going to the park with their
children. Shops closed early, if they even opened at all.
In other words, that November was a haunted fall.

No body found, but Jesse’s ghost knocked books off
shelves in the library, smashed leftover pumpkins
at night, and toilet papered the principal’s house.
People who listened close at night could hear windows

scratched, porch steps crack, and the distant howl
of an animal or train that swept things out of the light.

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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of the poetry collection, Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He edits Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market, in addition to writing a free weekly WritersMarket.com newsletter and a poetry column for Writer’s Digest magazine.

This is his eighth year of hosting and participating in the November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge. He can’t wait to see what everyone creates this month–not only on a day-by-day basis, but when the chapbooks start arriving in December and January. Fun, fun, fun.

Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.

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