Challenge for myself (and others if they want)

So, I've been thinking about poetry as I often do and I'm realizing that my poetry is kind of stagnant at the moment. I'm thinking about ways to change that. Then something hit me. Why not write a poem for each category you can submit to here. (Ex: Love, funny, explicit etc etc) I've personally been wanting to expand my poetry so I'm going to challenge myself to do so. And for an extra challenge write a poem for each subcategory of a category.

I'm posting here for motivation to keep going. No need to post poems/anything here unless you want to :) happy writing.

Just for future reference here are all the categories and subcategories this site has:

Love and romance:

Cyber love
Desired love
First love
I love you
Lasting love
Love is
Lost love
New love
Rekindled love
Secret love
Sensual love

Friendship and family:

Cyber friendship
Best friends
Broken friendship
Goodbye
Family
Love, friendship
Other

Fun and humor:

Relationships
For kids
About life
About society
Tongue twisters
Other

Sadness and depression:

Lost Relationships
Grieving, loss
About death
About Depression
Other

Life and society:

Inspirational
About society
Meaning of life
Faith religion
Patriotism
Other

Special occasions:

Birthday
Graduation
Valentine's day
Wedding
Mothers day
Fathers day
Christmas
Thanksgiving
Independence day
Other

Internet slang:

Love, romance
Friendship, family
Fun, humor
Sadness
Life, society
Other

Explicit and profanity:

Erotic
Alcohol, drugs
Profanity
Rape stories
Other

Dark and fantasy:

Dark, horror
Fantasy, mystical
Science fiction
Unexplained
Other

Nature and environment:

Nature

miscellaneous:

Misc. Poems

This is such a fantastic idea! Honestly, I often forget about the categories, and never sort by them since I can just sort by new poems... but this is a neat challenge to step out of my comfort zone. Especially with the funny category. I've used the miscellaneous section for so long because it can be hard to categorize when you're including several subjects and emotions.

Great post!

For Me there are the traces of misunderstanding here in this site about the subject of Poetry . This misunderstanding is so popular that seems it is the way to go.
By practising these titles and prompts we do not exercise our ability to write poetry, we only exercise our ability to write. We might even get inspired occasionally. BUT these kind of exercises do not improve our ability to become inspired, if one knows the real nature of inspiration. If one do not write good poems for a while and have what is fallaciously called "writing block," it is not because his/ her poetry became stagnant, it is often because he/she does not have anything to write temporarily. Because those experiences, those confectioners' sugars are already used. Because there are no inspiration for the time being.
~~The complains about being stagnant is due to the urge to fake an inspiration, or by forcing it when it is not due.~~
We are not factories, and inspiration is not the assembly line to expect study or even increased production all the time.

In my opinion one should always read and practice writing, but one should never force poetry. Poetry is sensitive against forcing. I have so many forced poetry that I worked on them in years but still are..., but my bests, they fore most were initiated in few seconds or minutes.
But when they (inspirations) come you do not need to force, they come in such way that you cannot even stop if you want to.

Poetry needs the experience of life, beauty, in all shape, colours, utopias and... It is like honeys, the bees do not make them by sitting in the hives and improving their technics, ( at least not entirely, if not definitely) . Honey is made by the bees going to the field and experiencing and experimenting the flowers.

Hemmingway practiced writing, but found inspiration, He forced himself to spend the beginning hours of every day writing at his typewriter. Eventually, he would be inspired to write from the heart. Then he would revise what went before.

To refuse to practice writing is to refuse to write inspired ideas better,

HOWEVER, please no explicit poetry except in the appropriate section for it. We don't want Hellon, whose profile is 1 year old, to have her young ears scandalized.

Oh wow! I have been working towards this. It allows me to push my creativity. I have always written more fluently when I have a topic or a set of rules to follow for my poem. When my thoughts are too open I get lost in the possibilities and frustrated. I always must come up with a topic, a title, a catching line ...just SOMETHING to keep my brain on track.

I will work through this with you!

It might be worth a ban to see the reactions….

I agree with a lot of this ddavidd, and you provide some great insight here!

The only thing I can add is that it might be slightly different for every poet. If I feel I'm forcing something, I'll wait it out or start fresh at some other point when I have more natural words or inspiration, but again, it's hard to define what may be natural for someone. Is it a verse or two that randomly pops in their head, or is it a clear vision that they are able to pen?

I love these challenges because they're there for people who need them and it's members contributing what's helping them or what they want to work toward. That's always cool to see! Like the random prompts thread we have going now, I see it more as a creative writing exercise. I may take the day to think over the prompts and create a story, maybe woven in with my current mood or feelings, weaving together fact and fiction. Maybe it's not "authentically me" as my other pieces that are direct feelings and personal experiences, when emotions are overwhelming or I turn on the computer and I start writing with the need to express my current state. You could also say though that there's always an association to what we write, even if it we're using random prompts, are we incorporating something subconsciously into it? With the category idea, I think I may wait until I have something that could fit into that category, rather than looking at a category and putting pressure on myself to write within those confines but I might feel differently tomorrow! A category can include a variety of emotions and themes though (which is why I mostly post in miscellaneous, because I feel it encompasses it all).

But the beautiful thing is, for some people, having that idea for using a certain category might sit in our heads for awhile until we have that itch or that picture in our minds to further expand on. Makes me think of the question, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Haha. Is there always something tangible inspiring us, that we can put a name to, or is it more of our subconscious taking over, and subtle day-to-day interactions influence us?

I love what you wrote about not being factories though, so true. You can't force inspiration in the way of an assembly line as you mention, and maybe in some cases, the beginning buds of inspiration or the start of it can be nudged or kick-started though.... and it's up to each poet to realize, is this being too forced, is this not what I want to do... or is this leading to something greater?

Edited
To respond to your authentic response first I must talk about the nature of inspiration. Inspiration is something that inflame the spirit, something that suddenly connects us to the other space, something sometimes as intense as epiphany. In strong cases A. Shamloo said, it feels like it is not you who write the words, It is like a giant within you takes the control of your hand. Inspiration is like healing in nature, you help it by medicine and good diet and… but it happens from within by the body itself. And no matter how much we drug up our bodies, it is the body that does the healing in the final analysis not us, we just can help. Our only contribution is to put ourselves in that position as was mentioned.
One never knows when or how s/he would get inspired. But one who has experienced it before, looks for everything to get that feeling, that rise of heat in the blood, back, as much as one has the tendency to fake such an ecstasy by imagining and assuming it, or by using drugs (medicine, back to our metaphor)

Everything that you said here is agreeable for me and I did not want to discredit the prompts and the titles, I just wanted to bring to reality the expectation one could have from them, though, trying not to damage the precious, often misplaced enthusiasms, by pointing at the true nature of them (prompts and...)
I also admit the positive affect of them in this site and already praised you for them in the other thread.

Edited
Your expectation of these prompts and titles is not different from mine, it actually matches hundred percent:
MA: That's always cool to see! Like the random prompts thread we have going now, I see it more as a creative writing exercise.
ME: By practising these titles and prompts we do not exercise our ability to write poetry, we only exercise our ability to write.

Sometime creating art needs patience more than creativity and the knowledge of true self. Otherwise, I know creating art is so organic, filled with complexities and is different in everyone.
My emphasis here was about the "Writing Blocks" mentality (in poetry only) there are not such things, So stop calling your works stagnant, when the inspiration is not yet there. In that case even Arthur Rimbaud's poetry is stagnant. ( funny thing is that he later became a slave merchant, when the inspiration ceased him for good)
The difference is that the great ones are more blessed with the amount and the intensity of their inspiration because they are gifted but also because they know the way to put themselves out there.
Yes, the good news is that this, (the ability to put yourself out there) is something that could be learned.

A wonderful idea, I've had moments where I really want to write and have felt the same stagnation you speak of, often when this happens I find it helps to immerse myself in reading poetry, maybe try to read more poetry than you may usually (if that's possible lol) or different styles of poetry than you may normally then combine it all with your challenge, it might help you get out of your funk. Great post though :)