April poetry month is like opening a new window each day stepping into spring with fresh eyes letting the year unfold through words and images. It's a lovely way to step into spring. This year I am starting with Hitchcock promps. Moments of suspense that allow the image to spiral.
In the second half of the month I wrote work that was inspired by the prompts to see how they might stand up to an interrogration. You guys know we're all only as good as the finished product... and there is fun to be had in the build.
Each prompt was designed to play with point of view to lean into drama or wonder and to let setting structure and memory become the engines of surprise in other words when applied what might that pressure point inspire. I'll post two samples here but right now the full write is available on public view my FB book page.
Mari
10.05.2025
Que Sera Sera
Taken From The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitchcock-1956)
Fate surrender and the winding road ahead.​
Design a poem where each stanza begins with “What will be…" Reflect on different stages of life mirroring the song's progression from childhood to adulthood.​
Reflections:
How do we confront the unknown at various stages of life?​
What does surrendering to fate look like in different contexts?​
Can acceptance bring peace amidst uncertainty?​
Consider the song's lyrics which transition from a child's innocent questions to an adult's contemplations about love and the future. ​
Example
What will be the dreams of youth
When questions bloom in search of truth?
Will stars align or drift away
As dawn unfolds another day?
Ode to Acme
Write a poem dedicated to the idea of Acme--the company that sells dreams in cardboard boxes delivers hope via parachute (that fails to open) and offers the promise that this time will be different.
Your poem might take the form of a love letter a buyer’s complaint a product review or even a wistful elegy. Let it balance the absurd with the sincere. Acme is every shortcut every shiny fix every plan we’ve ever sketched on a napkin at midnight. And yet--it always blows up in our face.
Handle With Care:
What does Acme represent to you: hope foolishness persistence capitalism invention?
Is the buyer naive or knowingly complicit?
How many ways can one trust a faulty parachute?
What’s the weight of a dream packed in a wooden crate?
Use technical terms like--rockets anvils catapults suction boots--or lean into metaphor. Acme is the poetry of trying. And trying. And trying again.
The Coyote’s Lament
Write a poem from the perspective of Wile E. Coyote--relentless clever eternally hopeful and forever undone. This is not just slapstick--it’s the quiet pathos of the always-thwarted dreamer.
Let the poem unfold like a blueprint for a plan a diagram or a dream. Use the language of invention. The language of schemes angles levers pulleys. But lace it with emotion for his failures aren’t just physical they’re philosophical. Why chase what cannot be caught? Why rise after each fall?
Blueprint for a Fall:
What drives the Coyote to keep going?
What does the desert teach him after each mistake?
How does silence shape his story?
Can failure become a form of poetry?
End with a puff of dust. Or maybe a quiet moment of unexpected grace or a beep-beep echoing back from a distance ...
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock 1951)--
Chance charm and chilling consequence.
Write a poem that begins with a casual encounter--two strangers perhaps on a train in a café at a crossroads in the woods. The conversation is ordinary at first: weather travel hobbies. But beneath the surface something begins to twist. One of them suggests a chilling idea--impossible absurd... or is it? And the other caught off guard neither agrees nor refuses.
Let your poem simmer in that grey area of almost. The deal is never sealed aloud but the gears are set in motion. Let unease build line by line. Guilt may bloom slowly or pounce in the final stanza. The poem should balance charm and dread fate and free will.
Crossed Lines:
What makes the conversation feel “off" to the speaker?
Is there a moment they could’ve stopped it--but didn’t?
How do subtle cues--tone gesture silence--betray intent?
Who is truly responsible when no one speaks the final word?
Let every word matter every pause hold weight and what’s unsaid echoes louder than what is. Write a poem that allows the reader to feel complicit in the choice.
Poetry Prompts (The Birds Hitchcock 1963)
Compose a poem where nature rebels unexpectedly against humanity. Personify birds or other elements of nature to express underlying societal tensions or anxieties
At first everything seems calm: a gull’s cry the rustle of feathers the everyday flutter of wings. But then there's a sudden shift. Birds begin to gather. Their movement is no longer random. Their cries feel sharper. Their presence becomes… ominous.
Use your poem to capture the moment when the natural world becomes unnatural--when beauty takes on menace and silence becomes suspense. Let the tone move from tranquil to terrifying in increments much like the film itself. Is there a reason for this revolt or is it simply nature reminding us of its ancient power?
Echoes in the Sky:
What is the first sign that something is wrong?
How does the speaker respond to this growing unease?
Are the birds symbolic of something deeper--grief guilt change warning?
Is there shelter to be found or must the speaker face the winged storm?
Your poem can take the shape of a gathering storm--light at first then charged with panic and awe. Let it soar strike and linger feathers and fragments falling where they may.
April Poetry Prompt: Psycho (Hitchcock 1960)
Craft a poem that reveals two contrasting perspectives within a single narrative.
Let your poem unveil these dual identities/realities. Begin calmly even pleasantly then allow the second darker voice or truth to creep in subtly at first before gaining intensity and taking over. Create suspense through contradictions internal tension and sudden shifts in tone or imagery.
Unsettle your reader make them question what’s real what’s imagined and how much darkness might lie beneath a familiar surface.
Questions from the Shadows:
How does your poem’s voice shift or split--gradually or suddenly?
What details hint at the hidden truth before it's openly revealed?How does the presence of two perspectives affect the reader’s sense of trust?
What psychological truth or hidden fear might your poem explore?
Allow your reader to question the reliability of their perceptions and wonder what secrets might lie beneath every surface.
With the Folon sculpture "The Rain/Man of Rain" in mind. It is situated on Via Aretina Firenze--a short distance away from the FAA and the Arno ... I know it well.
Where the Light Gathers Rain
(for every dream that dared the rain)
I found you folded small inside the crate
A breath away from rising into form.
I pulled the cord and waited by the gate
And watched you gather color from the storm.
You shimmered like a ship against the blue
Your walls were thin but strong enough to climb.
I almost thought I saw the world made new
And counted every hour as borrowed time.
But morning pulled the sky too far away;
Your edges sagged and emptied in the sun.
No hands could hold the light you tried to stay
No thread could bind the thing we had begun.
Still sometimes when the fields are soft with rain
I think I see you rising through the mist.
A ghost of silver stretching out again--
A dream too brief but far too sweet to miss.
So here’s my hand a wave into the sky
A wish sewn lightly through the breaking blue:
Float where the better brighter chances lie;
I’ll build no trap to try and capture you.
Mari 27/04/2025
He Ain't Heavy
--the bearers of time carry the heavens
I took his weight before I knew his name
A shape that leaned without a word or plea.
The road was long the stars were much the same
But now I felt their light fall differently.
His hand half-lost in mine was soft and still--
A trust unasked yet offered all the same.
I bore him not through duty but through will
A love that never seeks the badge of fame.
But then he spoke and I was not the strong:
He named the stars I'd never dared to see.
His song though soft became my marching song.
The one I carried now was carrying me.
And burden once a word of aching tone
Now sings of joy -- for I have not walked alone.
Mari 28/04/2025
I was travelling in Italy in April and there's a statue of St. Anthony in the Basilica in Padua that interlinked in my mind with the original prompt. The town I grew up in had a big connecion to the Franciscans they were/are good guys and good community men.
Mari Fitzpatrick
12 April at 05:08 --
Shared with Public
12th April 2025 Poetry Prompt
From 'Boys Town:' He Ain’t
The Stair Made of Stories
Opening Verse:
If you open your eyes on the breath of a wish
You may find a world curled in the shape of a dish
Or a stair made of stories that rise without end
Where each step is a question each railing a friend.
Prompt:
Imagine a realm where each step you take leads you deeper into a narrative universe--a staircase woven from tales where every ascent unveils a new story and every handrail whispers secrets of the past. Build a poem that embarks on this journey exploring the fusion of imagination and reality.
Considerations
Begin with a moment of quiet reflection or a whispered wish.
Describe the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Let each stanza represent a step revealing a new facet of this imaginative world.
Infuse your poem with sensory details to bring the fantastical elements to life and have a bit of fun ...
Optional/Optical Inclusions
Questions that challenge the narrator's perceptions.
An oval-shaped world or object symbolizing the unexpected.
A staircase that defies conventional architecture.
Personified elements (e.g. a railing that offers advice).
Poetry Prompt
From 'Boys Town:' He Ain’t Heavy…
Prompt
In Boys Town the words “He ain’t heavy Father… he’s m’brother--appeared in chalk on the dormitory board and it later inspired the song--write a poem about what it means to carry someone else.
This could be a literal burden: helping a sibling through illness carrying a child across difficult terrain supporting a friend through grief. Or it could be metaphorical: bearing another’s memory protecting a legacy carrying the stories of someone who couldn’t go on.
Explore the quiet endurance of love and responsibility--not as duty but as devotion.
Who have you carried and who has carried you?
When does burden become blessing?
How do we speak of sacrifice without sorrow?
What invisible weights shape our posture our pace our poetic/real world?
Whether grounded in reality or metaphor let this prompt be a tribute to loyalty brotherhood and the unspoken courage of care.
The Roadrunner's Code
Write a poem from the spirit of the Roadrunner--not necessarily in words he’d say (he only says beep-beep) but in the rhythm and instinct of his being. This is a creature who never stops to explain who glides just ahead of disaster always one clever beat away from capture.
Let your poem celebrate speed timing intuition--an untamed dance with danger that never breaks a sweat. The Roadrunner doesn’t gloat he simply is. There is something pure elusive and free in that kind of existence.
Echoes on the Trail
What is it like to move through the world untouched by failure?
How does speed shape thought? Or erase the need for thought?
What does the Roadrunner see in those brief glances backward?
Is he running from something--or simply running because?
Keep your lines short punchy playful--leave space between the stanzas. And when in doubt let the wind finish your sentence.
Beep beep 🙂
Poetry Prompt: Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock 1954)
Write a poem structured like a ticking clock. Begin with calm--a party a phone call a dinner being set--and slowly build toward a planned act that hides beneath civility. Someone in the poem knows more than they should. Someone else is about to be betrayed.
Let suspense build through time: minutes pass small details accumulate a plan unfolds under the guise of routine. The tension should rise not through violence but through the slow inevitable march toward it.
You might write from the perspective of the one being set up the one doing the setting up or an observer (even the clock itself).
The ending can twist--failures reversals or last-minute revelations welcome.
What details reveal the deception before it’s fully exposed?
Is the act coldly calculated or born from desperation?
Who is the victim really--and what does “victim" mean here?
How does time itself pressure the poem pulsing underneath?
Each stanza composed is a tick closer to something that cannot be undone. Let the reader feel the dread tighten like a noose made of words.
Rebecca (Hitchcock 1940)
--the shadowed corridors of Manderley and the ever-present echo of someone gone but not gone.
Poetry Prompt:
Write a poem haunted by someone who is no longer physically present but whose influence remains--thick in the air etched into walls echoing in speech gestures habits. This figure might be a lover a rival a parent or even a former version of the self. They’re never named outright never directly addressed--but they shape every corner of the poem.
Let your verses drip with memory unspoken comparisons quiet dread. The speaker might be trying to live a new life build a new relationship or simply exist--yet the ghost of the past is always watching judging influencing.
From the Wings:
How does the presence of this figure make itself known?
What has been left behind--an object a scent a routine?
How does the speaker's current relationship bend under the weight of this memory?
Does the speaker long for this figure fear them or resent their hold?
Paint a manor full of locked doors cold fireplaces and whispers down empty halls. Illustrate not the ghost--but the space they’ve never quite left.
April Poetry Prompt: North by Northwest (Hitchcock 1959)
Write a poem that drops the speaker--or a character--into the middle of a thrilling chase the result of a case of mistaken identity. They don’t know why they’re being followed only that someone--or something--is closing in. The story must be told in fragments as if overheard on a train platform glimpsed from a taxi window or shouted across a wind-swept field.
Keep the poem breathless and tense with clipped lines swift transitions and unexpected turns. Use disorientation to your advantage. You’re crafting a poetic fugitive’s tale--complete with glamour danger and the heady rush of not knowing what comes next.
Reflections:
Who does the world think you are and who are you really?
What is chasing you and what are you running from?
Can you trust the stranger offering you shelter--or are they part of the plot?
Where is the turning point the place where you decide to stop running or take control?
Let your lines race like a train through the night with danger at every crossing and revelation waiting just beyond the horizon.