Here are today’s written prompts for my Cambridge writing group so that you can join us in spirit if anything here stirs you to write. (Usually the group is really keen on that creative electricity that happens whenever we get together in person but in these UK winter months, I’ve moved us online because travel can be tricky.) These prompts, to warm us on these chilly days, are from two magnificent American poets today: Mary Oliver and Sylvia Plath. Happy writing!

PROMPTS FOR CWs, 17 January 2026

Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1965)

This is the room I could have never been in.

This is the room I could never breathe in.

***

Love, love,

I have hung our cave with roses,

With soft rugs —

***

This is the time of hanging on for the bees — the bees

So slow I hardly know them,

Flying like soldiers

To the syrup tin

***

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, volume two (2005)

You want to cry aloud for your

mistakes. But to tell the truth the world

doesn’t need any more of that sound. (The Poet with his Face in his Hands)

***

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.

He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.

He is sweeter than soap. (Percy, Two)

***

How the distances light up, how the clouds

are the most lovely shapes you have ever seen, how

*

the wild flowers at your feet begin distilling a fragrance

different, and sweeter than any you ever stood upon before —how

*

every leaf on the whole mountain is aflutter. (Bear)

Heptonstall, North Yorkshire