April 6: Brainstorm for three similes: A mask is like ______,” comparing the mask to 1) an animal or insect; 2) machinery or gadget; 3) a type of building. Pick your favorite simile, make it the first line of a poem, and form a story from the comparison.
April 7: Conduct brief research online into New Hampshire during the 1918 Spanish Flu. Write a poem alternating between the earlier pandemic and our current, set in New Hampshire. Here’s one site: https://www.businessnhmagazine.com/article/recalling-the-spanish-flu
April 8: Write a poem addressed to someone who’s upset or worried you during the past year because of the way they’ve handled the pandemic.
April 9: Write a poem showing your pre-pandemic life in December 2019 and contrasting it with your lifestyle in April 2021.
April 10: Create a neologism about the pandemic that addresses a sensation or experience that isn’t adequately captured for you in the English language. Make the neologism the title of the poem; in the body of the poem, explain the neologism without using your made-up word.
April 11: Write a sonnet about Zoom or Google Classroom.
April 12: Write a narrative poem in third person that shows three people in New Hampshire whose lives were affected by the pandemic in strikingly different ways, using tercets (three-lined stanzas).
April 13: Write half a sestina in which the six end words you repeat are all nouns or objects you associate with the pandemic during the winter or spring of 2021. For info on a full sestina, https://poets.org/glossary/sestina
April 14: Write a poem about the pandemic from the point of view of a tree or building in your town in New Hampshire.
April 15: Write a poem about the pandemic that uses at least two numerical details per line.
April 16: Write a narrative poem describing the experience of vaccination, using setting and sensory details that will help you recall the experience in ten years.
April 17: Freewrite
for 5 minutes (non-stop writing, not worrying about grammar) to the question: “How
am I doing right now? How am I today?” Reread your freewrite and use part of it
(perhaps words in the freewrite, perhaps a sentiment) as the basis for a poem.
April 18: Write half a sestina in which the six end words you repeat are verbs you associate with the pandemic during the winter or spring of 2021. https://poets.org/glossary/sestina
April 19: Write a poem that resembles an interview, entirely composed of questions addressed to the coronavirus over the past year. You decide whether to include the virus’ response or just your interview questions.
April 20: Write a poem composed of found language, entirely (or mainly) made of newspaper and internet headlines during the pandemic. Decide whether to stick to the same newspaper or website (or move around); another decision, whether to use a local or national/international news source.
April 21: Many people have said that the pandemic has altered their sense of time. Write a pantoum in which the repeated words reflect that altered sense of time. https://poets.org/glossary/pantoum
April 22: Write a poem in which April 2020, personified, meets up with April 2021, likewise personified. What do they discuss?
April 23: Where do you register the impact of this pandemic year on your body? Explore the sensations in a poem without using the first-person pronoun “I.”
April 24: Write a poem that’s a portrait of yourself at the desk, working on a poem about yourself writing during the time of COVID.
April 25: Write a poem that zooms in on 5-10 minutes that exemplify your experience of the pandemic since last spring.
April 26: Write a poem with lines alternating between hope and another emotion related to the pandemic, mentioning at least one concrete or three-dimensional detail every line.
April 27: Write a close-up of an object familiar to the pandemic, with extreme sensory details such that the object becomes de-familiarized or surreal. Include “ode to” in the title.
April 28: Write a poem in which a single list or several lists are the main structural device, and the list(s) concern that which you are thankful for about the pandemic. Try to mix three dimensional, sensory details (coffee in the morning) with abstractions (connection with others).
April 29: Imagine that a new plant or small animal is discovered on the same day the pandemic completely ends. Describe this new creature’s circumstance of discovery and its future fate.
April 30: Imagine
the coronavirus’ final day as a harmful force on Earth. What would be the coronavirus’
last words to humankind?
