OctPoWriMo Day 14: Inspiration from the Poets Who Went Before...

One of the ways I improve as a poet is to collect and read lots of poetry books so that I may come to

This photo was taken at City Lights Bookstore

know a lot of poets with a lot of styles. Not all of them suit my taste but this is completely fine. I learn as much if not more from those poets whose style is different than my own.


Today I am going to offer ten quotes from ten different poems for you to use as prompts for your writing. This is different from the norm and that is good, my loves, that is good. 

How uninteresting life would be if we always spent it on the exact same things in the same old ways! Now is your chance to try on a little bit different thought processes.

I have been studying poetry on my own as an independent scholar for years now. I do it because I love poetry. Imagine my delight when happening upon the poetry at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It is like a Poetry Sanctuary. Learning from these poets may be the start of a grand thing for you!

Read the quotes and choose one you find especially inspiring. Allow those words to seep into you. Use them to begin your poem and then... continue until you are satisfied.

If you hit a spot where you feel blocked, choose a different quote to write from and "marry" the stanzas together.

Now, for the quotes and poets.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
GK Chesterton



“Live not for Battles Won.
Live not for The-End-of-the-Song.
Live in the along.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks


“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Two girls discover the secret of life
in a sudden line of poetry.”
― Denise Levertov

“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.”
― Adrienne Rich

“Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.”
― Jack Kerouac

If you are stumped to write from the quotes, feel free to use the image prompts or write something completely different. Both photos were both taken by me, Julie Jordan Scott. As long as you give me the credit, I am thrilled you use them on your blogs.

-- Julie Jordan Scott

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Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Fall and Winter, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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Ready? Let's write and then let's check out the other poet's words. If you are one of the first poets of the day, go to yesterday's list and comment the poets from the end of yesterday. They tend to have fewer comments.

Have fun!