Author Laura Purdie Salas posts a weekly photo prompt on Thursdays (here). She invites others to write a 15 words or less poem in response to the photo, and bills this exercise as a “low pressure way to wake up your poetry brain.”  I stumbled upon this site a few weeks ago and thought it would be fun to give it a try. I didn’t manage to participate the first week, but this week’s photo was especially intriguing to me. What caught my attention was the contrast between the word Pacific on the building and the tense stance of the player.

Photo: Laura P. Salas

Hardly pacific,
the intensity
of fraught battle
looms
awaiting the first
incoming 
missile

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

If you have a chance, check out the site. It’s fascinating to see how many poems and perspectives emerge from a single photo prompt.