photo by MidiMan

We are challenging you to write your own mini anthology of poems this August! To help you, every two days poet Jon Stone will set a new challenge on the Young Poets Network site to spark off a new poem.

Challenge 2:  Squid Poem

One short to normal-length line, followed by ten long tentacle-like lines, each of which could follow on from the first.

Jon’s example of a Squid Poem:

Scuba

In my dream, I dove into a sea of
plump nutty radishes turning to pink as they boiled in the sun’s sweat
frothed coffee-chocolate milk creatured with marshmallow jellyfish
expensive suits of varying dournesses, all swimming against each other
loose riffling pages that curled into a glowing ash when I brushed them
selves I could have been if I’d been a Tudor or conquistador or Amazon
winds with smoke scents, who spoke a language of shot-down planes
marmalady resin, which set into an amber block all around me
words, many of which I swallowed as I sank into a bottomless paragraph
waving hands, whose arms’ roots were obscured in further hands
colours. So many I couldn’t name them all, even with a Dulux chart.

Submitting your poem

Jon has now chosen his favourite response to the Squid poem challenge, but you can still use his workshop to spark a new poem and send to one of the opportunities on our Poetry Opportunities Page! Have a read of this Squid poem for inspiration:

Alarms by Christie Suyanto

Jon Stone was born in Derby and currently lives in Whitechapel, London. He is co-creator of the multi-format arts journal Fuselit and micro-anthology publishers Sidekick Books. He won a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award in 2012 and his collection, School of Forgery (Salt, 2012) is a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation. He works as a court transcript editor.

Published August, 2012