Poems in April - Asking Questions

Today we are very close to the end of the April challenge of writing poems, and I wanted to bring up the subject of questions in poetry, and the preference is for short poetry.

Let me start with three examples for having this prompt

My first example comes from the Douglas Adams’, “Hitchhiker’s guide to the Universe”, where the answer is given as 42, but what question is it that gives the answer, to some extent that is one of the basic ideas from which to spin the novels.

The second example comes from politics, where we expect the politicians giving us answers when they should rather be asking us questions to form our future, i think only by asking the right questions can we get to the right answers.

The third example is from Poetry and Pablo Neruda’s “Book of questions” where he provokes us by asking questions, sometimes leading us to the answer, sometimes being totally open ended.

Tell me, is the rose naked

or is that her only dress?

I think especially open questions leads us to think, where answers leads blocks our thinking often in a dividing manner.

So the challenge today is quite simply, write a poem consisting only of questions.

If you want to take it to the next level, why not write your own answer to the question(s) in the form of a response to your own questions.

Let’s have fun and share our thoughts with questions, remember to read and visit other poet’s writing.