9 Bright and Beautiful Poetry Prompts For The Summer

Summer is a season often associated with happiness, freedom and exploration. These 9 poetry writing prompts will help you bring these emotions alive in the next poem you write. This post also includes a moodboard and a summer themed Pinterest board to give you some visual inspiration!

JUMP TO SECTION:

1. Her Name Was Summer

2. Summertime

3. Unexpected Rains

4. Summer Ekphrasis

5. Summer Nights

6. The Flavour of The Sea

7. Swallowed By Waves

8. Children of The Southern Seas

9. Voices From The Seashell

1. Her Name Was Summer

If summer season was a person, what would they be like? Give this person human mannerisms. What do they normally dress in? What genres of music do they enjoy? What is the shade of their eyes? What is the tone of their voice?

Answer these questions and write a poem inspired by this idea.

2. Summertime

This is similar to the prompt above. What if Summer was a town or location? Of course, the weather of this town can be humid and sultry. Consider other features of the city that you might be able to compare to summer. What is its name? What are the materials used to construct the structures in this place? What happens to this place once summer is over? You can choose to make this place sound like a real town or even a fantasy.

Take inspiration from a real-life location that makes you think of summer.

3. Unexpected Rains

What is something you wouldn't expect to see in the summer? Write a poem on this out-of-the-ordinary encounter. Remember not to stray away from the summer theme of the poem.

4. Summer Ekphrasis

Write an ekphrastic poem after this painting by Laurent Parcelier. Remember to credit the artist if you post or publish your poem anywhere!

5 . Summer Nights

Many people associate summer with time spent with friends and family. Visiting our grandparents, eating mangoes, learning to swim, playing with one's cousins as a young child, summer carnivals, relaxing in the beaches and long sunny days. Think about a memory you have of summer season and give your readers a vignette of it through your poem.

6. The Flavour of The Sea

What foods come to mind when you think about summer? Summer conjures images of delicious mangoes, soft nongu, the tangy nanari sarbath my aunt makes, the refreshing coconut water from the vendor near my home and vibrant ice creams.

Write an entire poem describing the tastes of summer.

7. Swallowed By Waves

In your poem, use the phrase 'swallowed by waves' or a similar variation. The waves can be real waves or could be a metaphor for something else. What do the waves represent in your poem? Or alternatively, what are you being swallowed by? Or what is being swallowed by the waves? What is the sensation? Incorporate these in your next poem.

8. Children of The Southern Seas

Write a poem imagining yourself to be the child of the sea.

9. Voices From The Seashell

When you press your ear to a seashell, it sounds like you're listening to the waves of the sea. This experience is called seashell resonance and it has a lot of fascinating physics behind it! To put it simply, the sound you hear is actually air bouncing about in the hollow cavity of the seashell.

Create a figurative meaning for this sound. What do you hear when you place a seashell against your ear? Is it the sound of the sea or is it something? Is it a voice in the midst of the raging sea? Whose voice is it, exactly? What does this voice have to say? Expand and build metaphors from this phenomenon.

I hope these writing prompts were able to give you a few ideas for your next poem. The Poetry Cove is always open for many opportunities to share your poems with a safe community of poets from all around the world. You can share your poems to receive feedback, for others to read or even submit to the Magazine.

Happy writing!