Writing prompts for a fever dream summer

by lisa marie basile

Welcome to our next installment of writing prompts and exercises. Think of these as a doorway you can always walk through; here, you have permission to be strange and wild, to be expansive and dripping. If you do happen to write something based on our prompts, feel free to share and tag us on social media @lunalunamag.

Check out our previous set of prompts: Writing Prompts for the Cult of Dionysus

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Next to this world, there is an adjacent world. A summerworld. It is eternally blooming; there is always something fluttering. What does it look like? What does it sound like? Where is its doorway?

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Let the summer crush you. Tell of its weight. Tell of its body upon yours.

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You ask the summergods for secrets. What do the summergods tell you?

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You let the berries ripen and then rot. You let the flowers ripen and then rot. What does the decay ask of you? What is found in a loss of beauty? What is found in the drying out?

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The summer always ends. How does it teach us to let go?

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In Southern Italy, La Controra refers to the height of the afternoon sun—its looming shadows cast, its oppressive heat. It is a time of closed shutters and silent streets and woozy, lethargic naps. Some say spirits wander at this hour. What is your high noon spirit? What chases you through the bright shadows?

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Write a poem about summer from the perspective of winter.

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Lisa Marie Basile is the author of a few books of poetry, including her most recent, SAINT OF (White Stag Publishing, 2025). Her work can be found in The New York Times, Catapult, Narratively, Tinderbox Poetry, Lover’s Eye Press, Tarpaulin Sky, Spork Press, Always Crashing, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Experimental Writing 2020. Lisa Marie is a recipient of the 2026 Individual Artist Fellowship by the Jersey City Arts & Culture Council. She holds an MFA from The New School in NYC and is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine.

Writing Prompts for the Cult of Dionysus

by lisa marie basile

Each week, our editor Lisa Marie Basile will offer up weekly writing prompts and exercises. Think of these as a doorway you can always walk through; here, you have permission to be strange and wild, to be expansive and dripping. If you do happen to write something based on our prompts, feel free to share and tag us on social media @lunalunamag.

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In Ancient Greece, Ekstasis referred to the idea of “standing outside yourself” — summoning or achieving a condition of ecstasy or transcendence, in communication with divinity. Write a poem that embodies this Ekstasis. How does it feel in the body? What is revealed in this state outside of yourself?

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Write a poem of frenzied desire, but don’t use language that refers to what you desire. Let the yearning exist without over-defining it. How can the poem achieve itself without divulging all of its secrets?

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Your poem is an altar of excess and lusciousness. What is placed upon it? Let language be the decoration.

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Conjure the sensations of nocturnal dancing. Give it shape through language. 

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Write a poem in the aftermath of frenzy, desire, lust, and drunkenness. What are you left with? Did you surrender to yourself? Did you lose the weight of restraint? Or did you lose yourself in the blur? What danger lies in the ecstatic beyond? What divinity?

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Write a letter-poem to Dionysus; ask for what you desire. Ask for help letting go of yourself. 

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Write a poem in which you are the bacchante. Be ornate, be spectacle, be intoxicated by substance or spirit, be loud, be excessive, be dramatic, be wild, be free. Try automatically writing this; let the frenzy exist without parameter or self-editing.

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Lisa Marie Basile is the author of a few books of poetry, including her most recent, SAINT OF (White Stag Publishing, 2025). Her work can be found in The New York Times, Catapult, Narratively, Tinderbox Poetry, Lover’s Eye Press, Tarpaulin Sky, Spork Press, Always Crashing, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Experimental Writing 2020. Lisa Marie is a recipient of the 2026 Individual Artist Fellowship by the Jersey City Arts & Culture Council. She holds an MFA from The New School in NYC and is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine.