The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest

Chel Owens

Greetings, mortals, and welcome to the Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest #45!

Sometimes as writers we take ourselves too seriously. We take writing too seriously. Poetry is the worst medium for that, attracting snooty nose-raises and accusations of not being in tune with raw Nature. So; take off the shackles of your beret, read my basic outline here, and live a little!

Here are the specifics for this week:

  1. The type of poetry I’m interested in is a tanka. Colleen Chesebro runs this form (and a few others) every week for her popular Tanka Tuesday challenge.
    A tanka is very much like a haiku, but uses the format 5/7/5/7/7.
    On top of that, our Topic is PUMPKIN SPICE.
  2. What’s the length? I already told you: it’s a syllabic pattern of 5/7/5/7/7.
  3. Rhyming is not allowed. Scented candles are.
  4. The most important part is to make it terrible. Madame Chesebro herself must apply to WordPress to have my site banned from the internet, burned, and buried with cloves to ensure we never attempt to write tanka poetry again.
  5. Pumpkins and their harvest seasonings can stay rated at PG or tastier.

You have till 8:00 a.m. MST next Friday (October 4) to submit a poem.

Use the form below if you want to be anonymous for a week.

If not, and for a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments. I highly recommend commenting and not just depending on linkbacks if you write one.

Have fun!

heidi-kaden-JjxAasj1_uA-unsplash.jpg

Photo credit: Heidi Kaden

28 thoughts on “The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest”

  3. Something spicy in my pumpkin

    Pumpkin spice! Pumpkin
    spice! Syllable counting in
    Germanic languag-
    es is a meaningless pro-
    position. It works in the

    Romance languages
    however, where syllables
    matter. Which is pos-
    sibly why we eat pumpkin
    as a vegetable over

    here, and to think of
    it as being something in a
    dessert is a fair-
    ly repugnant thought! This then
    is my triptych tanka. Yeah!

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Pingback: love tanka | Does writing excuse watching?
  5. Pingback: Spicing the Pumpkin – The Abject Muse

  6. Chelsea I think I’ve written the worst poem I’ve ever written based on this prompt. I’m almost too embarrassed even to post it on my blog 😦

    Liked by 1 person

  7. Pingback: Pumpkin Spice (A Poem) – Not Sheep Minded
  9. Pingback: Terrible Poetry – Pumpkin Spice Tanka. – Lovewillbringustogether's Weblog
  10. Pingback: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest #45 – Ruth Scribbles
  11. Pingback: The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest – Pumpkin Spice Tanka – Twenty Four
  13. Pingback: Terrible Poetry – A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent.
  14. Pingback: Pumpkin Spice, A Terrible Tanka – mindescapes.net

  16. here’s my offering:

    Tanka about Pumpkin Spice

    Pumpkin Spice is nice
    I’m told by people who drink
    overpriced coffees
    I’ve never tried it and won’t
    I’m too judgmental of them

    Joanne Fisher

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Pingback: Tanka About Pumpkin Spice (Terrible Poetry Competition) – joanne the geek

Comments are closed.