Looking for a push out of that summer malaise and back into regular writing?
Your creative journey:
For the first 20 days of September, you'll receive a fresh, carefully crafted poetry prompt in your inbox each morning – your daily invitation to explore, create, and play. Then, during the final 10 days you'll weave together one line from each poem you've written (or from fellow writers' work) to create an entirely new, 20-line poem you’re invited to share at an online open mic on Tuesday 30th September.
What do you get?
Your £5 sign up gets you a month of daily inspiration and motivation, community connection, and a final poem crafted in a unique form!
During the final 10 days you’ll still receive tips and motivation to guide your editing journey.
Share your daily writing along the way with the hashtag #SepExcc25 on Instagram, and on the dedicated page on the Poet Notes Substack (the page will go live on September 1st).
Celebrate your hard work and dedication
Join the fun and welcoming online open mic on Tuesday, September 30th evening: the perfect opportunity to share your masterpiece or any piece that sparked joy along the way, and connect further with your writing community.
You’re welcome to attend even if you dropped out of the challenge or don’t want to share anything you’ve written.
Why ‘Exquisite Corpse’?
For those who haven’t come across this term before, this is the name given to a collaborative poetry game where each poet writes a single line on a piece of paper, then folds the paper so the line can’t be seen before passing it on to the next poet who adds their line and does the same. You’ve probably played a body drawing version of this game as kids at some variation of holiday club or camp.
For this challenge you have the option of using a line from each of the poems you’ve written during the first 20 days, or from the shared work of other writers participating in the challenge. We’re bending the form slightly as you’ll be able to choose all your own lines, but hey, we’re creatives - we’re used to climbing out of boxes.
*If you are not happy for another poet to use lines from your poem, please state this clearly if/when choosing to share your daily poems on Instagram or the Substack page.
Why write now?
It's been a long and (mostly) beautiful summer, with perfect days for long walks, beer gardens, picnics in the park with friends, reading beneath the shade of a tree, barbecues in the evening, trips to the seaside… all that good stuff. But as summer begins its gentle retreat, what better time to reconnect with our inner creativity and give our autumn writing selves a push into productivity? Join the September Writing Challenge and let creativity carry you gently into autumn.
Once you've signed up...
You’ll get a confirmation email from me sometime within the following day welcoming you to the challenge, and then you don’t need to do anything else till the 1st of September when you’ll receive your first prompt and it’ll be time to get writing.
You can also sign up through Poet Notes on Substack.
And don’t worry - there’s no obligation to share your final poem at the end! If you prefer one of your earlier pieces you’re very welcome to read or share that instead, or just come along and enjoy discovering what others have created.
In the meantime please share this challenge with anyone and everyone - the more poets involved the richer the pool of material we have to work with!
If you have any questions please feel free get in touch.
I’m so looking forward to writing with you friends :)
