Gavin Bennett's Blog: 2015 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 22

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Waiting for (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “Waiting for the Weekend,” “Waiting for People to Recognize My Genius,” and/or “Waiting for the New Star Wars Movie.”

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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 Waiting for Blank poem:

“Waiting for Jesse”

Clara waits for Jesse to reappear at her window
so she can let him in. He will fly through the night
to give her a taste of his life. “It is better,” Jesse
said, “when you are a member of the undead.
Clara, I hear the beat of your heart; I see the sweat
on your skin. It’s all so much more heightened.”

At first, there was the fear that Clara felt so clear,
but Jesse talked his way into her mind. Now she
waits for him and his pale white skin, his teeth–
o my–how they have grown. A wolf that rules
the night; a bat that’s filled with sight; Clara craves
Jessie’s delights. When the sun falls down, Jesse

will come back around, and then, Clara’s new world’ll
begin, and her old life–filled with anguish–will end.

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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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