Today’s resource is Poetry Northwest’s online collection of essays exploring different poets, craft elements, and styles of poetry.

And now, without further ado, our optional daily prompt, once again pulled from our archives. Today’s prompt is a poem of negation – yes (or maybe, no), I challenge you to write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like. For example, if you chose a whale as the topic of your poem, you might have lines like “It does not settle down in trees at night, cooing/Nor will it fit in your hand.”

It does not chirp or coo
And it's definitely not blue

It does not run or walk
And it surely cannot talk

It's not light as a feather
And it does not like cold weather

Of family it does not have a dearth
And does not lack a wide girth

It does not have a neck
and maybe the first thing you'd jettison in a shipwreck.

It's not soft on the outside
It's not hard on the inside

It's not everybody's taste
It cannot be enjoyed in haste.

It has nothing to do with an antelope
And yet isn't it funny that it's called a Cantaloupe?

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