Throughout October, join other poets in this month-long challenge designed specifically for poets, by Michigan Poet Donny Winter. Participants will be challenged to write one poem per day for 31 days.
After the challenge, participants can submit their work to the Friends of Roethke. Submitted poems will then be reviewed, and some will be selected for publication on our website.
Ways to Participate
Open up a word document or notebook and just start writing! Some writers benefit from having guidelines, whereas others benefit from not having any, so there are two tracks for completing Oct/POEM/ber:
The Prompt Track provides you a daily prompt to follow. You can sign up below to receive our daily prompt via email, or you can see the whole list right here.
The Independent Track is self-guided and expects you to write a poem per day without the assist of prompts.
How to Share Your Work
Donny has created a companion Facebook group for conversation and informal sharing that you can join here. It’s a lot of fun to see pieces in various draft forms and talk with others about their interpretations of different prompts.
Additionally, your poem has a chance to be PUBLISHED! After the challenge, submit your work to octpoember@friendsofroethke.org with the subject line “Oct/POEM/ber Submission,” from November 1 until November 30, 2026. The Friends of Roethke Foundation will select some for publication on our website.