The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone

Fun, easy, and reflective poetry prompts to help spark your creative inspiration! I’ve used this book for myself, with my partner as a fun date activity, and with my clients as an intuition & creativity coach. I recommend!

Fasano has created a great prompt book that could inspire people of all backgrounds, all ages, and all skill levels. I myself have used the prompts in my own way, starting with the description of the subject to address, and then filling in some of the blanks with my own thoughts, feelings, and images. Along the way, I become inspired and take the poem off-prompt. Although I don't stick to the given template, these prompts get me started, allowing me to discover whatever poetry is within me on that day. Highly recommend for anyone, and especially for young writers.

I myself am a poet and I bought this as a way to help teach my middle schooler how to write poetry. She decided she wanted to use it more as a madlib type of book and it brings her so much joy. But--she is still low key learning the structure of poetry without realizing it. Ha! It's a beautiful book and I love how it can help anyone to write something really quite beautiful. Sometimes our creations are funny and wild and sometimes they hit so hard without even trying. Love it!

I would give more than 5 stars if I could. Joseph Fasano is a beautiful poet and his work has been some of the only more recent poetry that has deeply resonated with me. This book is a genius idea that truly does help ANYONE find their words and songs that are already within them. I appreciate that unlike a lot of other writing prompt books he doesn’t just give directions and a blank page, he gives you a more detailed guide, allowing your imagination and personal thoughts to come through but giving you the form and guiding hand along the way. I want to buy this book for everyone I know!

Fun book! It’s kind of like Mad Libs for grown ups but the results are more thought-provoking. You fill in nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. For older folks it could be helpful with engaging the brain, especially when you’re trying to think of a word you haven’t already used.

Definitely true that these are madlibs. However, it’s still possible to use them to spark creativity. I could definitely see them as a classroom tool for young writers as well. You have to be creative to write “original” work however.

This is an excellent resource for many uses. It contains writing prompts on a variety of topics and concepts, examples, explanations, and commentary in a quick, easy to understand, user friendly style. It would be great for personal use but also very adaptable for teaching purposes for beginners and/or advanced writers from children to adults; and for use with writing groups and/or friends groups. There is a lot of potential in one book!

This book is sooo great for restarting your creativity from a really simple but deep place. It’s such a good morning routine and has the rest of my day infused with more creativity. It’s also been great to share with our kids. Love love love this book, I bought two copies.

Un libro para escribir poesía desde la estructura base. Para amantes de la poesía, y los no iniciados. Para los profesores de literatura, que desconocen como hacer que las palabras avancen sin que el autor se hiele en el proceso. Lo probé con una traducción al castellano, y es muy útil. Salieron poemas maravillosos.

In terms of guided writing I thought this poetry book was exceptional. A little part of me think its difficult to claim credit for the prose that comes from using it, but I tell myself it's no different from taking lessons and coming away with something that you feel a personal connection to. I bought this for my children to help them, as a starting point, and I think it's a so much better than just reading other peoples work (Which I still recommend!) because they take it on-board and really feel it with their own contributions.

The templates make it so easy to express your feelings in poetic form

Great

My 9 year old has wanted to write a poem each day since I gave this to her for her birthday. She is so impressed with it and how it has enabled her, that she has shared the book with her class teacher unprompted.