Tips for a good last word

In Chain Poem a line hands on one thing only: its last word. These tips won't write your line for you: they help you choose the word the next poet gets, and make something of the word you get.

End on a door, not a wall

A word that closes the line shut leaves the next poet nowhere to go. A word that opens onto something, a thing, a place, a moment, gives them a door to walk through. Before you press Done, read your last word alone, as the next poet will, and ask whether you'd like to be handed it.

Prefer a thing to an idea

A word you can see, hear or touch carries further than an abstract one. Something on its own makes a picture, and a picture is what the next poet can build a line on.

Hand on two meanings

A word that means two things lets the next poet pick, and the poem turns where nobody expected. Those turns are what the table laughs at, or goes quiet at, when the poem is read.

Take up the word you're handed

Work the word you see into your line, as it is or with an ending of its own, and the poem holds together: at the reading the link shows underlined, and the line that took it up counts towards the Bridge Builder badge. Or answer it, or rhyme with it; any of these keeps the chain going.

Turn in the middle

Start from the word you were handed, then take your line somewhere of your own before its end. The poem gets a surprise in every line, and the next poet a word that is yours.

Keep it short

The box takes 120 characters, but a poem is read aloud, and a short line lands harder than a long one. One line, one picture, and a last word worth handing on.

When you're stuck

Say the word you were handed out loud, and write down the first thing it brings back: a place, a person, a smell. The best lines come from your own life, which nobody else at the table could have written.