Pen & Page Prompt #11
This week: A guided prompt to encourage musicality in your poems
Pen & Page: Reverberations
Poetry begins in the body—as breath, pulse, vibration. Before rhyme and meter, there was the hum of language itself: the subtle rhythms of consonance, the lift of vowels, the quiet percussion of the line break. This week, return to the sounds inside your words. Listen for their tempo, texture, and tone. Let sound be your guide. Become so aware of the echo of language and the outcome will surprise you. The goal: always to write with a sliver of your consciousness tuned into sound. Let it become your companion, the music in the background that sings and hums.
Prompt #11: The Music Beneath the Words
Core Prompt
Premise: Imagine you are alone in a quiet room just before a storm. The air thickens; the light shifts. You begin to notice every small sound—the ticking of a clock, the hum of an appliance, the faint rattle of leaves against glass, even your own breathing. You realize these sounds form a kind of language, one that exists beneath meaning.
Prompt: Write a poem that arises from that moment of listening. Let the sound world guide your choices—the vowel music, the consonant textures, the rhythm of pauses and echoes. Choose one sound family (a recurring vowel or consonant) to weave through the poem. Don’t chase images; chase resonance. The poem’s logic should follow the ear rather than the eye.
Craft Menu
Alliteration: Repeat initial consonant sounds to create motion or mood.
Assonance: Use recurring vowel sounds to stretch or bind a line.
Consonance: Play with subtle interior echoes—stone, rain, skin.
Rhythmic tension: Break a line in a surprising place to shift the reader’s breath.
Silence: Use white space or enjambment to create a pause that “sounds.”
Shape Options
A free verse poem that moves like a melody or chant.
A prose poem that hums beneath its sentences.
A list poem of sounds you notice throughout one hour of your day.
Constraints & Twists
Limit yourself to 10 lines, each containing at least one word with your chosen sound.
Or: write without adjectives—let sound carry the emotional tone.
Quick Version
Write a short poem that explores one recurring sound in language. Read it aloud and notice how it feels in your mouth and chest.
Stretch / Expansion
Experiment with transformation: take an existing poem of yours and revise it for sound. Replace neutral words with ones that ring or hum. Notice how the poem’s emotional pitch changes.
Reflection
Where does sound live in your writing process? How does attention to the ear shift what you discover on the page?
#Stage Notes
No River Twice: A must see poetry performance! And it’s live on Zoom.
NRT is a group of poets who offer poetry readings in which audiences and poets interact in a collaborative performance, poem by poem, to decide the direction of the performance from beginning to end, co-creating a reading that is never the same twice. No River Twice doesn’t improvise poems, just everything else. The audience determines themes and tone and the reading is a discovery to all. Each performance is a one-of-a-kind connective, playful, and communal experience.
When: November 12, 7:00-8:00 PM (ET)
Where: Live on Zoom
How: Link to www.norivertwice.org for the link on the day of the reading
Who: Liz Chang, Chad Frame, Shawn R. Jones, Joanne Leva, Lorraine Henrie Lins, Bernadette McBride, Cleveland Wall
#Margin Notes
Rewilding the Poem: A Rain-Soaked, Soul-Filled Retreat
As many of you know, I spent 4 days last week at the River Heron’s Rewilding Retreat. Even under gray skies, the retreat glowed with spirit and creativity. The rain never dampened the work—it deepened it. Poets leaned into the rhythm of weather, writing to the sound of rain on leaves, sharing drafts over steaming mugs, and finding unexpected kinship in the coziness of the clouds. Between lessons, readings, and long conversations, we explored language, wildness, and wonder—and discovered that rewilding happens not only on the trail, but also around the table, in the laughter that echoed through the lodge, and in the poems that found their way through the mist. It was a weekend of deep engagement, learning, and connection—proof that sometimes the most cohesive, comforting kind of magic blooms in the rain.
If you’re interested in receiving news about the 2026 River Heron Retreat, let me know at 10poetrynotebooks@gmail.com. I will add your name to the retreat mailing list.
Hoping your upcoming week will prove to be generative and filled with deep satisfaction. I look forward to sharing another post next Thursday including a provocative prompt tailored to not only start the writing process, but bring you in closer to the core of your creativity.
Until then,
Write and thrive,
Robbin
These prompts are becoming more and more profound. Thank you for your work, praying for your well-being. :
It has surpassed the break of dawn
Way down the valleys of the yawn
And in the river of each shiver
Stray hairs which stand at my frightened face
Profoundity has left its time
Simplicity has coursed it's rhyme
I'll write without "nots, wonts" or "donts" in mind ?
And let the feelings of each breath, succumb to it, your reach your chest
And let the pat-pat- pat-ter of Night, sercomvent the Mornings lighter
Harmonize, Her eerie fires