Write your own colour poems!

Writing colour poems can be fun. Be inspired by a painting or a walk and write something to brighten your day.

Imagine being the owner of a market stall which sold colour. Scooped straight from the heart of a rainbow and wrapped in a cloud, your customers want the very best colour to push away that grey day.

But how will you sell it to them? Will you shout ‘buy some blue, it’s good’, or will you describe what it means to own?

Pick a colour and write a poem. What does your colour taste like? Will it feel grand or itchy when wrapped around my shoulders? Does it have a sound? Perhaps it whispers to me as I walk? Use all your senses to explore the colour, besides being a good way to stretch your writing it might take you into unusual places.

It can be a happy poem, or a sad poem, a daft poem or a serious poem. Think about how the colour makes you feel or how you want it to make others feel because that will help steer the content of what you write.

Try to avoid ‘blue’ and ‘red’ and ‘green’ because those are a bit… dull. Instead, how about choosing a colour word which feels good to say: aubergine, azure, cerulean, cinnabar, claret, indigo, khaki, magenta, maroon, mauve, ochre, periwinkle, primrose, puce, ruby, saffron, sage, sapphire, slate, terracotta, vermillion. You could even invent your own word or your own colour, thereby adding even more to the world.

Here’s an example:

Indigo, squeezed from the bow
of a berry in the morning sun,
will carry you across deserts
and into an oasis of self-esteem.

Add your poem as a comment below and I’ll choose one person who’ll receive a copy of Astro Poetica written by me and illustrated (in beautiful colour) by Jools Wilson.

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