The Poetry Haul Challenge
Week Three - #artstackpoets #artstack
Hey Artstackers,
It’s time to dive into the next chapter of The Poetry Haul! Our weekly challenge is designed to spark your imagination, stretch your creativity, and connect you with a community of writers and artists who love exploring the power of words.
For Challenge #3, we’re giving you ten evocative words to craft your poem. You can use all of them or just a few—it’s up to you! Let’s see how your unique voice weaves these into poetry.
This Week’s Words
body, hibernation, rights, free, shoulders, silo, understatement, peace, cry, frequently
Do these words spark a story, a memory, or a moment in time? Whether it’s a haiku, free verse, or a longer narrative, we can’t wait to see where they take you.
How to Participate
Write your poem using the challenge words.
Share it with us by [posting directly on Substack with #artstackpoets] and tag us
Engage with other participants—read, comment, and celebrate their work!
Deadline: Next Thursday
We’ll feature a selection of standout pieces in next week’s recap post. This is your chance to share your voice and connect with others who love the written word as much as you do.
Let’s create something unforgettable this week.
Need inspiration?
The last long wishing game
Left me consuming memories of missing
You
With your gems for eyes
Through interstellar gas and dust, piercing
Me
On a quest for answers in the words I wrote
That suspended history with threads of
Us
Sipping sweet wines
When I preferred to drink the rich red
Crimes
Between us that is all that remains
Of the ecstasy we shared in those Chesterfield
Nights
That seem so relentlessly empty now
Void of your hot blood rushing alongside the
Jazz
Rhythms rolling over the peaks and valleys
We discovered when we were both
Lovers
Locked in the lingering legacies of time
Defined by two magnetic polarities pulled forcefully into a
Kiss
I never wanted to end
But now leaves me wondering at the phenomenon of
You.
—
The Poetry Haul Challenge
The Poetry Haul is back with Challenge #2, and we’re thrilled to see your creative sparks fly! This week, we’re diving into a new set of words designed to inspire, provoke, and challenge your poetic instincts.
https://substack.com/profile/108838358-wild-lionesses-pride-from-jay/note/c-88143953
Dignity's Weight
Atlas bore the world, yet so do we,
Shoulders heavy, histories crammed in silos,
Each trauma a layer, a cry unheard,
Echoing through the hibernation of our hearts.
Body remembers where the mind forgets,
A silent embodiment of pain and resilience,
Frequently, we trade peace for mere survival,
An understatement to call it endurance.
But what of dignity, the tender right to stand,
Free from the weight of shame’s imposition?
It whispers through the cracks of our mindset,
A voice rising, though long buried.
In its light, we find strength not in carrying,
But in knowing when to set the burden down.
To cry, not in despair, but in release—
And call that freedom by its name.
**The Eucharis Lily**
From long hibernation through
blissful negation of
the winter’s chill,
the Eucharis Lily stirs
her bulbous body in confines
of an abode of a pot;
Setting free the embodied energy
of a wuthering cry,
buried deep inside,
in silo, but for its
connection to the soil;
Awakened by
the waning winter’s sun’s
frequent murmurings of her rights —
a soft sigh pressing its way in through
the chaos outside.
Rising tall on
her stalky legs,
her strong shoulders now un-
taut, separated
from the weight
of the throat’s knot;
Un-furling
pearlescent glow of a gossamer’s
feather-feel;
Still, with the faintest hint
of a fragrance,
she bows down
her head in humility
to the sun of the spring,
as if in a candid
understatement
of inner peace.
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