In case I haven’t made it obvious this last year, I am not a poet. Yet here I am, coming to your inbox, your social media feed, your SEO-clicked word, each Monday with a prompt that encourages you to wax poetic.
I did not ask to do this. L.L. Barkat came to me. She seems to think I’m capable of things that never would occur to me to try. Like one day a few years ago when I was on Twitter, just minding everyone else’s business, when she asked me, “And you, @calliefeyen? What book would you like to write if you could?” I’ve no idea what I wrote back, but I’m sure it was something dumb. Write a book? Please.
But back to the poetry. L.L. never said, “I think you’d be good at this,” when she asked me to write prompts. She simply described the job and then asked, “Would you like to try?”
My answer was a simple, but heartfelt yes.
Above my writing desk is a quotation from one of my favorite love stories, Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith. Carl Brown, one of the main characters, is considering his wife Annie’s pursuit to write. Carl adores Annie, but he is apprehensive about her writing because, as anyone who’s in a relationship with a writer knows, the craft takes us away for a while. Many times we are changed when we come back. Carl understands this. He knows that for Annie, writing is not so much a hobby as it is a sense of being.
I guess she’s all right, he thought, or she wouldn’t be writing….Nothing will ever throw her — no matter what happens to her — if she can get it down on paper.”
This is how I feel about writing, and why I didn’t hesitate when L.L. asked me to write poetry prompts. Writing — no matter the genre — is how I make sense of the world, and I am thankful for the many different ways there are to do that: creative nonfiction, fiction, screenwriting, journalism, and yes, poetry. What an abundant number of avenues there are to wander along and wonder about one’s life.
I think the question, “Would you like to try?” is at its heart, a playful one, and that’s why I bring up this anecdote. “Play” has been July’s theme, and I believe playing is the beginning of trying.
This past year I tried to write poetry prompts that would inspire (or haunt) you to pull a poem out, and it has been fun. I never concerned myself over whether or not I was a poet. I just played.
Play shakes things loose. It allows us to wander and discover. Play encourages us to try the what-ifs that pop up, the ones we might otherwise not be willing to consider because it’s scary. Play shrugs its shoulders at that attitude, hands us a soccer ball, a scuba mask, a paintbrush, a pen, and says, “Would you like to try?”
Would you?
Try It
If you’ve been following along this month, I’ve been suggesting ways to read a poem. This week’s exercise comes from Tania Runyan’s book, How To Read a Poem.
Consider reading a poem and paying attention to the five senses in it. Write down what you feel, hear, smell, etc. in your journal. Or if you want to write a poem, try writing one about play that uses all five senses. What does play feel like? What does it sound like? Maybe you can write a poem about play so vivid you don’t even use the word.
Photo by lee Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.
A Writer’s Dream Book
“Callie Feyen has such a knack for telling personal stories that transcend her own life. In my years in publishing, I’ve seen how hard that is—but she makes it seem effortless, and her book is such a pleasure. It’s funny, it’s warm, it’s enlightening. Callie writes about two of the most important things in life—books and clothes—in utterly delightful and truly moving ways. I’m impressed by how non-gimmicky and fresh her writing is. I love this book.”
—Sarah Smith, Executive Editor Prevention magazine; former Executive Editor Redbook magazine
- Poetry Prompt: Courage to Follow - July 24, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Being a Pilgrim and a Martha Stewart Homemaker - July 10, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Monarch Butterfly’s Wildflower - June 19, 2023
Tiffany Patterson says
Balance
Balance on
The 2 x 4 over the swamp water
Tip toe carefully
jumping over
The submerged
Muck
Splash
pause
Squeak
Lift
Gloop and earth
Weighing on
My foot.
Walk
On the path
Step
Squoosh
Step
Squoosh
Frog croaks
Turtles observe
Heating up in the dappled sun over the
Marsh
Still, silent
Step
Squoosh
Step
Squoosh
Sandra Heska King says
Oh… I’m right there on that 2×4 with you while I’m sitting here next to this creek.
Thanks for playing, Tiffany. It makes me want to play, too.
Tiffany Patterson says
Oh thank you!!
Richard Maxson says
Crust
As if in butterfly wind,
impossible comes and goes,
on cloistered, spiraling ladders
terrible and tender.
We watch mitochondria.
Round-shouldered
starched pleated coats,
like stones along a shore,
harboring pools of sightless
anemones and stars
that wait for the moon
to turn and speak to them.
Light in a room
changes, arranges
flowers by the window.
In Jebel Irhoud
a modern child died
160,000 years ago
with a sun,
in the Magellanic Cloud—
both waited
in the dust.
In evening, the flowers
will have turned as you slept,
and a tree fell silently.
In my small town,
mornings smelled
like bread. The bakers dreamed
in sunshine that loaves of moon
would rise, wake them
to begin again
with their peels and stones
to raise the dead.
The sky filled with peonies
casting moving shadows,
as powdered wings rose
casting shadows of their own.
In the cities we touch,
we speak, as we pass,
like RNA along the
streets and structures.
The sky with its stars
contains us like a shell.
Wind carries us
on the light,
like the fragrance
of baked bread.
Sandra Heska King says
Richard, how do you *do* this? “Throw”’ such words and images together at the speed of light? I keep reading it over and over.
Richard Maxson says
Thanks, Sandra. All my notes and lines and failed poems are in one file. Often, if I remember a couple or few failed poems I will rework them into one. I’m not so sure this one succeeded.
Katie says
Where, Oh Where?
As I tumble toward the ground
I wonder where I will
be found.
Will I be put in a hard-packed sphere –
part of a snowball fight this year?
Or be on this day
in a snow bank
somewhere along a highway?
Will I be blown by the wind
into a snow fence with my kin?
Or be part of the biggest this winter,
the largest snowfall
seen in many a year?
Will I be taken for a ride down hill
on a ziggy-zagging snowmobile?
Or be scooped up now
by a lumbering
snowplow?
Will I be worn for a second or two
on a little child’s cold snowsuit?
Or just be – “Oh, pooh,”
stepped on by
her daddy’s snowshoe?
Where ever I land, I’m sure it will have been
an interesting journey until the end.
Sandra Heska King says
Katie, so fun! A single snowflake could end up anywhere. I love how you gave voice to one.
Katie says
Thank you, Sandy:)
Had fun writing it!
martin gottlieb cohen says
mountain lake
the night air fills the loon’s call
tinywords 27 August 2007
L.L. Barkat says
Lovely.