ysabetwordsmith is hosting a poetry fishbowl today, where she writes poetry to prompts provided by her readers. A new prompter means a second free poem will be posted.

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/2383083.html

You can also sponsor any poem written, not just ones written to your prompts; if you sponsor a poem, you also get non-exclusive reprint rights to it.

This month's theme is "Alternate History":

I'll be soliciting ideas for historical figures, historians, time travelers, ancient objects, probability machines, time machines, books and other records, things associated with a specific point in history, time periods, cultures you'd like me to feature (if I haven't promoted your favorite one to world domination, now's your chance), battlefields, laboratories, schools, other places where historical events occur, turning points in history where things could've gone quite differently, events that inspire people to want changes, and poetic forms in particular. But anything is welcome, really.

My prompts for this month were

• What if we'd gotten the criminals and Australia had gotten the Puritans?
  
• What if there hadn't been an extinction event that took out the dinosaurs?
  
• What if I were elected Empress?

The latter probably doesn't count as a legitimate prompt, but she's free to ignore it.