30 in 30 TBR | April 2026 I’m going to do it this time, I swear to God. I’m going to do this TBR a little bit differently. I won’t be pairing the manga with the prompt. I think there’s going to be a …

#30in30 #TBR | April 2026

Wild flight paints desire lines across the sky / where last night, blind, the billionaires’ rockets raved. / The rage, the curse, now blessed in the gentle drift of sunrise.

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day31

Red Room’s #30in30 daily prompts for Poetry Month end today. Strange to lose the daily practice that it nurtured, coaxing a bud to bloom out of the page each morning. I’ll miss that small rhythm, the quiet sense of others writing nearby. Thank you to the community that formed around it.

competing, with its own mantra, the owl versus the cars:
vroom vroom, boo-book - vroom vroom, boo-book
cold, I escape into that endless indigo sky; stars, planets the moon and me

#30in30

endings, sweet or not, breath cleaves for space, broken hearts entwine.
disentanglement as l’appel du vide -whispered promise – fate,
draws you down - the abyss beckons with bony fingers and thumbs

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

L’appel du vide - The call of the void

In that moment, there is something like pride, that isn’t pride, / love that isn’t love alone, surprise that is genuinely surprising, / There is no word for that feeling when they say, “you saved my life.”

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day30

Read, Write, Lexapro – Remember to – Eat, Drink, Wash
Buy a bucket from Bunnings – Rubbish!!
Mum and Dad, the Dragon – Petrol, Parcel, Poem

#30in30

Keep your Ancestors fire burning. - Kaitlen Wellington #30in30 writing prompt from Red Room poetry

Playing Chinese checkers with grandad on the back veranda, /
a shadow of a cool change and cane fires behind us /
and the incessant storm bird announcing this afternoon will never end

#30in30 #RedRoomPoetry #poetryMonth

Prepare yourself for another day. Meditate. Medicate. / Check the progress of the apocalypse. Fortify. Call Mum. / Dress for success. Choose a playlist. Breathe.

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day29

I come from a long line
of biscuit eaters.
Biscotti anyone?

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

Hear the call of the whale amongst the screams of humanity, write about where the currents take you. - Eric Avery #30in30 writing prompt from Red Room Poetry

My teacher kept a whale’s earbone
in her leather satchel, /
passed it round the class some afternoons /
so we would learn an underwater silence

#30in30 #RedRoomPoetry #PoetryMonth

Stoke the flames with remembrance / fan it by speaking honourably / fuel it with stories of your own

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day28

I declare, waiting for Armageddon, the end of all things human
- amongst the debris, the lost exploitative systems of patriarchy -
you will find me raking patterns in the gravel with a spoon

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

A mouth unlearning silence. What came before? Write what comes after. - Rataj Abdullah #30in30 writing prompt from Red Room Poetry

The word cracked through scarred throat /
the crisp edge that gave it sense, lost, not confused, not mis-heard /
not word. Song.

#RedRoomPoetry #30in30

On escalators, as in ideologies, stand to the left / Wear the clothes that make you comfortable; wear pants for the comfort of others / Whatever the game, and whatever the rules, always play nice.

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day27

chanting green nothings under the still
leaves of peeling eucalypts, I
kick leaves, raise hell, see the mosses cling

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

still I cling, from I know it’s Over – The Smiths

a last leap of faithlessness, all as one, as won by all, / we turn to you, the remains of you, to discover your / music holds your life, but your death is in your eyes.

(Final three lines of “at the centre of it all, your eyes” a tribute to Blackstar by David Bowie, 2016)

#RedRoom #30in30 #Day25

Plant me in a garden of earthly delights, with a pine tree – long cellulose fibres, I will be paper eventually
I will be inked with stories, written upon by poets aspiring - stories will sprout in spring’s rush of fecundity
I want to be read for eternity – don’t let my death get in the way
#30in30

Writing one’s own eulogy is an exercise of the ego. / I should expound upon my many virtues, my gifts, my legacy, / but all I want to say in the end is thanks for everything.

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day24

Sunset burns into the bight / reflects sparks from clifftop binoculars. / The whales are back, trusting the ocean.

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day24

whales starve so cry the wild sea, as the talk goes
round and round, circulating in whirlpools of plastic debris, rising heat
an absence of krill, whales starve so cry the wild sea

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

unstitch the mouth – peel the mask back, and scream
– reverberate back
to the beginning - neurodivergent

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth

Anything to keep the peace, she always said / now that circumstance has shattered tranquillity / there is no excuse for silence, she shouts

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day23

5. Everyone has a sippy cup, cardboard or plastic. Some seem made for desert crossings.
17. My noodles are not al dente and I consider this might be a universal problem with soup. Or maybe it’s my food flask.
29. A duck swims in the fountain. There is nothing there to eat. It just swims.

#30in30

Put on instrumental music and dance ecstatically for a minimum of 5 minutes. Write a praise poem. ~ Leah Senior #30in30 writing prompt from Red Room Poetry

Praise the barbed wire the twist the grip the rigour the slack stapled against the river gum growing around despite it survival the floods the drought the sleek rump of a steer pressed against the scratched hide the scar just a trickle of blood iron and rust, the same mark on my arm

#30in30

Write a poem about someone who once mothered you. Work in fragments-think of a story they once told you, the scent of their living room, their superstitions. Gather the fragments into a poem. - Eunice Andrada #30in30 writing prompt from Red Room Poetry

The way of the lawyer vine: reaching, prickling /
The way of the cabbage palm whispering, whispering /
and the mountain’s way of unmoving then crumbling

#30in30

In the parked car, I drink mango passionfruit kombucha
In the parked car, the woman taps on her phone.
In the parked car, I leave half my drink for later
In the parked car, she still taps on her phone.
In the parked car, I stow away bananas
In the parked car, now an empty space.
#30in30

In this modern city of churches, whom do we now praise? / The singer for whom the lane is named, or the pilgrim poet streaming Angels through headphones? / The homeless man on the cold slate steps, or the God who looks away?

#PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #30in30 #PoetryCompetition #DailyPoem #Day21

RED ROOM POETRY ... A pilled, polyester nightgown. Just a Target job. Pale blue. It retains her scent, of macadamia-caramel icecream, Anais Anais perfume, black coffee, Omo... … and our last hug in the house, as the ambulance rolled up the drive. - J Lee #30in30 winner, 21 August

Delighted to learn I won the Red Room #30in30 daily poetry challenge today for this poem.

It’s all part of #PoetryMonth and I’m gaining much from the discipline of the prompts, timed windows of submission and the community building around it. Thank you to all sponsors and all other participants.

Danse Macabre:

we rise at dusk dance through the war zone skeleton dance with skeleton
fleshless we are the same no need for land or religion or hatred or death
we dance the dance of all dances together we dance together

#30in30 #redroompoetry #poetrymonth