As you probably know, I’ve been challenging myself to write a poem a month in 2025. I’ve been using a lot of prompts to get myself in the right mindset (because otherwise I’d spend entirely too much of my writing time trying to come up with a topic, this speeds things up).
I know it’s AUGUST and you’ve already seen 7 of these by now but I recently had someone ask me WHY I was doing this poetry challenge. Good question. Basically, I used to write poetry ALL THE TIME. It was how I started writing, actually. I had entire books full of poems. I learned new styles all the time. Then, after I turned to writing full novels, I realized poetry is a beautiful way to connect with characters. I often write a poem (as I did last month) from the perspective of a particular character.
When I was younger, one of my FAVORITE types of poems to write was the classic sonnet. Something about the rigidity of the rhyming pattern and syllable count always gave me an interesting challenge. It forced me to swap out words or get comfortable with one syllable words I could insert in strange places.
So, for August, it felt like an appropriate time to tackle a sonnet.
I again googled for poetry prompts. This time found Prompts by Jasmine (@promptsbyjasmine over on Instagram). Full disclosure: I may have used one of her prompts before, although I’m not certain.
Since I wrote this yesterday, I picked the twentieth one off the list for August: Favourite Hiding Place.
So, without further ado, here is the sonnet for Favorite Hiding Place.
The job that was supposed to pay the bills,
to scrub the messes left in posh charters
and take the abandoned stuff to landfills,
left her feeling like one of the martyrs.
She loathed scrubbing toilets with yellow spots,
wasting food left behind in the kitchen,
and doing things that gave her second thoughts.
But what would be the outcome of bitchin’?
No one was going to come and save her
or hand her the cash she needed for bills.
Instead, she would find a spot to defer,
somewhere no one would gander, with no frills
and she would hide for a while, on her own,
until enough billable time was blown.
Is it perfect? No, they never are for this challenge. But, it fit the bill and it was fun to work with this style of poem again!
Anyway, I’ll see you all next month for another poem. Until then, try connecting with something YOU used to enjoy … maybe you’ll find that excitement again.