WRITING PROMPT -
DECEMBER 2025

Discover a Poem in the Dictionary

“This poetry prompt is deceptively simple; it is easy to choose your words but challenging to work them into a poem. First, grab a dictionary, close your eyes, open the dictionary to any page. Run your finger down the page. Stop, open your eyes, and write down the nearest word and its definition that appeals to you (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are more workable). Repeat this process up to ten times with different pages of the dictionary. I chose these four words for my dictionary poem: fog, grape hyacinth, migration, and plunge.”

Poet Laureate 2006, Marie Kane
(excerpt from, “Fire Up the Poems”)

Start Writing

This dictionary-word search is one of my favorite writing prompts. Once you’ve chosen your words, find a journal, computer screen, or notebook paper. Use the dictionary words to begin journal entries. Write about the words you looked up and record anything that comes to mind. What colors do the words suggest, what places, actions, or people? What occasions? Emotions? Memories? How do the words go together? If a word could talk what would it say? Circle the ideas that seem especially useful, original, or vivid. Which ones work to include in a poem? You can use four or five of your dictionary words in your poem, or just one word that could be the title, but the poetic result is up to you. Happy writing!

Further Exploration

Socratic Q & A.
“What is personification and how is it used in poetry?”
23 March 2018,