Ways into Poetry – Write a poem a day (PAD)

During April there are various places and groups around the internet that you can join to write a poem a day during the month. It is not too late to join in.
Foremost of these is the challenge set by Robert Lee Brewer, Poet and Senior Content Editor at the Writer’s Digest community and today the prompt is about writing a poem using the phrase Urban (blank) and replacing the blank with a word of your choosing.

If that doesn’t appeal to you I have an alternative suggestion. I want you to imagine immersing yourself in water, to plunge in and swim for your life.

Here is an extract from New Zealand poet Jan Kemp’s poem Swimming to get you in the mood

Swimming

Nothing reduces you to your skin like the sea – cold plunge into reality, 
a tongue already salty and all that power 
self-propelling you through our other element – 

This inspired photographer Megan Van Staden to do a series of pictures based on the poem.

Charles Bennett suspends a woman over London in his poem on the Magma website

Swimming Over London
 
A woman is swimming over London, 
a fox turns up his face to see her pass. 

There are blackbirds in the sleeping streets, 
a pear tree luminous with blossom. 

It’s the dream she always has, 
the dream where she’s stretching out 


Have fun.