Writing Exercise #56

INGREDIENTS

1. One of the worst decisions of your life.

2. Three selfless acts you have committed.

3. Something you used to love when you were little.

- - - - -

Now, read this amazing poem.

Write an alternate universe poem about one of the worst choices you've ever made. The best way to do this is to write out as much as you can remember about #1; try to get down to the smallest details of that day. If you don't remember, make it up.

Your reader never needs to know what it is, because we're going to journey with your alternate self. Choose a setting opposite of where the bad choice was made. Make sure elements of that day are still around you, but this time, they are not as they'd been, originally. If a broken windshield was involved in the actual version, have a waitress drop a tray of drinking glasses. If you were bruised after the real events of the bad decision, make the neighborhood you're alternate self walks through be filled with nothing but blue houses.

Have your alternate self complete a selfless act for a stranger. Make sure that stranger is a metaphor for something from the original event. Make sure this act has a snowball affect for the stranger. Something good or grand that is able to happen due to your generosity. Allow yourself to still love #3. Allow it to still be there for you. If it is a place, have that be where you go to sleep. If it is a toy or pet, carry it with you everywhere you go.

If you want, let the narrator announce a few things that didn't happen. "Rachel did not cross the street today / she instead stopped at an ice cream truck / as the birds above her fought for worms / and a big blue car did not run a red light."

It might be best to keep this in third person. Second person if you're daring. Allow yourself some sweetness. We can't drag our mistakes around with us everywhere we go.

Writing Exercise #55

I'm writing this in Duane Reade. Someone just said, "I hope she understands what I'm willing to give up to be with her. She is the god of my heart."

Just when I think I've heard it all...Oh New York city, you can be so sweet sometimes.

Write a poem about the god of your heart. If you want, choose a different organ or body part. Or an emotion. Or the best or worst year of your life.

Writing Exercise #54

Yesterday and today have been a whirlwind. I'm currently in NYC for the PEN International Voices Festival. I am badly sunburned, I am fatigued and I am cranky. That said, I am annoyed at falling beyond on my exercises. So let's just get to it.


Write a poem about the night you were conceived. Wikepedia will be helpful in figuring out what the world was like at the time. Use this calculator to figure out when it happened: http://www.paulsadowski.com/Birthday.asp

Use that juicy imagination of yours. GO BIG.

Writing Exercise #53

I'm writing this from my space phone, so it's gonna have to be short and sweet:

Write a diner scene where an old movie star comes in and takes a seat next to you.

Writing Exercise #52

This is going to sound easy, but it isn't.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Three things you stress out about.

2. Five things/skills you do not have, but want.

3. Five sounds you hate.

4. Three animals that scare you.

5. Five small things that annoy you.

- - -

Here's what we're going to do. Title the poem with a moment from #1. For example: When The Phone Goes Three Days Without Ringing or After You Lose Your Job or When Your Lover Moves Away or When I Got Spanked For What I Didn't Do...

Then let the next lines be guided by this title and go! Include as much of your others lists as possible.


When Your Lover Moves Away

Everything leaks.
Everyone sounds like a grand piano under water.
Sharks thrash in the sink. You wake up
missing your writing hand.
The cats howl like distant sirens.
Every child is playing a filthy violin.

___________________________________

(This exercise was inspired by the magnificent Regie Cabico and his poem Glare.)

Writing Exercise # 51

INGREDIENTS

1. Three objects that scare you.

2. A calming place or song.

3. A boring routine.

- - -

Write a letter to someone from inside another person's brain. Choose your brain wisely. Imagine the setting in a place like this. What's lying around (#1)? What is the soundtrack (#2)? What is in there that shouldn't be? What does it need more of? What is the constant inside this brain(#3)? What memories can you see in there, and where are they kept? Is anyone else in there? If so, what is he/she doing? Does anything grow in there? What is it upholstered with? How long have you been there? What will you do to get out?
_____________________

(This exercise was inspired by a line in Ana Božičević's poem Swan.)

I love you, Jennifer

My cousin's funeral is today. I am so sad I can't be there.

Me, Jennifer, Frankie and my brother, Peter.

We danced.

Jennifer's birthday party. I remember being so jealous of that Strawberry Birthday cake. My aunt Jane was such an amazing baker.

1992.

I love that Jennifer and I were constantly changing. We look so different from year to year.

Ah, the peace necklace. I remember thinking, "Borrring" back in the day, because I was wearing, you know, safety pins or some garbage through my head at the time.

Jennifer and my brother at Frankie's wedding. That's the smile I will always remember. Those are the glittery eyes.

Below is the poem I wrote for her daughters.

Writing Exercsie #50

INGREDIENTS:

1. Someone from your life who was treated terribly by a group of people. It's okay if you didn't know them personally. It's better if you are unsure of their current whereabouts.

_ _ _

Write a mythology for this person. Decide when, in their life, they became a target for wrong doing. Start it small, at birth perhaps. When the lonely nurse refused to give them over to their mother. Or first grade, when the teacher never called them by their right name. Create the moments that snowballed into them becoming a person who could endure hardships later on. But make sure this becomes their power; their ability to withstand the worst of people.

For example, this girl Alma from fifth grade used to pick on us first graders while standing in line for the bus. She used to yank our braids or kick us really hard in the back of our legs. In reality, I'd finally had enough one day and I turned around and whopped her in the head with my metal Bee Gee's lunch pail. But here, I'd write that every time she kicked me, I'd levitate a little. And when I came home to my father, he'd smack me a little higher into the air. You know. One Hundred Years of Solitude style.

Allow as much of the fantastic to happen to and from this person. Give them all of the powers you can muster. Write them a wonderful life. Or write them as the hero of a cautionary tale. Remember how everything in the world is capable of witness. How did nature respond to this person? What became of manmade things in their path? What, if anything, has taken the place of their blood? Hands? Mouth? Heart?

_________________________

(This exercise was inspired by Neutral Milk Hotel's songs Little Birds (start it at 1:06) and Oh Comely.)

Writing Exercise #49

Seems like a day for a litany, doesn't it?

INGREDIENTS:

!. Three things you witnessed by the age of ten.

2. Three things you learned the hard way.

3. Three things you can't forget.

4. Three things that worry you.

5. Three things you have built.

6. Three things you have destroyed.

7. Three things that follow you.

8. Three things that calm you.

9. Three things you envy.

10. Three things you wish weren't true.

- - -

I love the litany as a form. As much as I love unitoums (one-word pantoums). Before you start today's writing, read Gabrielle Calvocoressi's poem, Late Twentieth Century in the Form of Litany. My sister, April, introduced me to her and holy BOLOGNA! Go buy all of her books. Then come back to your lists of things and design your own litany. Decide, first, which of the things you've written down will be your recurring line. Then go go go.

We're in the home stretch, folks. One week left of NaPoWriMo! By now, your brain is either exhausted or it's limber and ready to jet on down to the finish line.

__________________

(This exercise was inspired by the mantra I built for myself on the subway yesterday.)

Writing Exercise #48

INGREDIENTS:

1. Go here and pick an occupation for your subject.

2. Three things you like to do for your lover.


3. A fun place that would be better if it wasn't always so crowded.

- - - - -

Write the person you've chosen for #1 as your lover. How does his/her occupation affect your romantic routines (#2)? Daily routines? Sleeping routine? Eating routine? What happened the first time you took them to #3? How have you changed to accommodate them? Is there something you can no longer do? Is there anything you miss? What would your wedding be like? Children? Home? Arguments? Turn ons?

Writing Exercise #47

INGREDIENTS: (Multiple Choice)

1. Your first eight acts of rebellion.

2. Eight things you've stolen.

3. Eight things that were taken from you.

4. Eight things you've given away.

5. Eight things you deserve.

6. Eight things you covet.

7. Eight things you keep hidden.

8. Your eight final acts of rebellion.


- - - -

Write a poem in parts/numbers. Imagine this poem as a slide show. "Here you'll see me climbing into the cupboard and stealing the cookies/ and in this one, the girl with unleashed braids chases me through my kitchen with an ax"

Have fun. Or have awful. But have it well, my dear.

_________________________

(This exercise was inspired by Lewis Carroll's "An Agony in Eight Fits.")

Writing Exercise #46

This is one of my favorite prompts that comes from one of THE BEST teaching books for writing ever. (YOU'RE WELCOME.)

I call this the Russian Nesting Doll Exercise, only the things don't have to get smaller. Here's how it works:

One of my students wrote: I opened my heart and out came my father/I opened my father and out came a fist/I opened his fist and out came my teeth/I opened my teeth and out came a song...

See?! FUN. Or not fun. But still, it's gonna get your gears working. Promise.

I'm off to Boston and NYC. I'll do my best to put up prompts from the road, but they might be wonky because my phone is a total jokester sometimes.

Writing Exercise #45

INGREDIENTS

1. A person with a character trait or habit that keeps you up at night.

2. A quiet thing that goes about its business (often unnoticed)

- - - -

In today's writing, let the person's habit or trait breed something of itself that resembles #2, only make sure whatever it breeds is representative of its creator. Have these things graze or swim or peck or sleep long hours. Choose something from #3 that this trait eventually becomes. Think of a church steeple termited with grief. Or a herd of cyclones that overeats (women). Maybe the person loves too much or falls in love too often. Maybe they are always giving back-handed compliments. It's always up to you, ladies and gentleman. I just work here.

Be the careful observer. The grim Jacques Cousteau narrating its movements and slow, steady destruction.
_________________________

(This exercise was totally inspired by the obnoxiously talented artist - who also designed the cover of my book Pink Elephant - and plaid shirt aficionado, Mike Stilkey.)

P.S. Wanna help a teacher out while getting a limited edition chapbook from me? Clicky Clicky.

Writing Exercise #44

Being poor and doing taxes is stressful. I almost forgot to put up this prompt. I'm sorry.


INGREDIENTS

1. Twenty things you remember that he/she doesn't.

- - - -

Go to town. You don't have to focus on one person, here. Let the hes and shes be numerous. Remember specific details, but if you make them up, be sure to make them meaty. (You know how you remember things the way your young or in love or grieving or tired or drugged or sad or excited self perceived them? And looking back at it, you know there's no way things happened like that? Include those things.) Give as much atmosphere as you can muster. Write what took the place of the other person's memory of it, or write where they left the memory. Why doesn't your father remember leaving you in the car all that time? What did your lover do instead of hold your hand? Did your wife leave your wedding anniversary in the medicine cabinet? What is it doing there? What happens to half-remembered things?

If you're the non-rememberer, that's okay too.

_____________________

(This exercise was inspired by the poem Neglecting the Kids by the great Jack Gilbert. If you're going to borrow his form completely, don't forget to write "after Jack Gilbert." Because we gotta give credit where credit is due.)

Writing Exercise #43

Today is better than yesterday. This has to be true. Thank you for the kind notes, friends. Now, onto some writing.

INGREDIENTS

1. List an animal/insect that you were frightened of when you were a child. To this day, snakes terrify me. So do wasps. I was stung more than fifty times when I was a kid, thanks to my rock-throwing brother. I hate how their hind legs hang as they fly around, like these paralyzed limbs that just drag along. UGH. Okay. Enough about that.

2. Three questions you are afraid to ask.

- - - -

Let this poem be its own wild thing. Let the animal or insect or whatever you feared as a child be a life-sized version of its self. Consider what a creature like this would wear. How it would talk. A physical trait it might have. Get comfortable enough to ask it your three questions. It might actually know the answer. It might lie to you. Perhaps this creature has followed you throughout your life. Perhaps it has come to make amends. Or knows a secret of yours. Wants you to know of someone else's good news. It's okay keep quiet. It's okay to watch it tear your house apart from the other side of the window. It's okay if you don't want to look at it, if you ignore it as it goes about its business. But make sure the reader knows it is there. Make sure we know you know it's there.

_________________________

(This exercise was inspired by a nightmare I had last night about a suit of snakes.)

Writing Exercise # 42

I have two cousins in the whole wide world: Frankie and Jenny. My brother and I spent most of our first ten years running around with Frankie and Jenny on the streets of Santa Ana, California as our dads drank themselves into hurricanes. When their dad (the only uncle of mine that I actually considered my Uncle) died last year, it was on the day of my dear friend Gabrielle Bouliane's memorial service. There literally was no room left inside of me to grieve. I have never properly dealt with my Uncle Frank's passing.

This morning I found out that Jenny died late last night. Complications from pneumonia. It's been horrific. She'd been in the ICU since February 27th. Her body was being ravaged daily.

For those familiar with my book Pink Elephant, Jenny has a brief appearance in my poem The Doll. Jenny was the youngest of us cousins, and the happiest. I never could understand it. She was always smiling, her eyes half-mooned to joy. She had red hair and freckles and big brown eyes. She was unlike any other person in my family.

Jenny leaves behind her three young daughters and her husband, Carlos. Her youngest turns a year old today.

Right now, I am listening to the saddest record in my collection. I am thinking about taking the people I love and hoarding them somewhere. I am thinking about underground bunkers in a field of blue children. (Have you ever read that story? By Tennessee Williams? It is one of my favorite stories of all time, and is nearly impossible to find.)

For today's exercise, I'd like you to try the following:

1. List three activities you love to do, but don't always have time for.

2. A line from a song you love and love and love.

3. Three beautiful truths.



- - -

I did not grow up with a mother. I was an angry child because of it, and my anger was dressed in a man's clothing. I did not know how to be anything but mean and violent. Brutish. Femininity was something I copied, over time, and it felt unnatural for the first three decades.

In your writing today, I want you to find a small child somewhere. You choose the where. It can be at the library, behind a romance novel. Or in the ocean. In the backseat of your car.

Take them in. Teach them how to do one of the things from #1. Understand that they might not know your language. Understand this child has had no guidance. Adapt your words to their youthful nature. Write a poem of new language if you want. Design the song lyric to be good advice, or a prayer or mantra. Remind them of #3. Let one of the beautiful truths be a god to them. A parent. A home. Or something created for this child as a gift for their many losses. Give them what they don't know they need. Something they can pass down to their own children. Something to hold onto through loneliness.
_________________________

(this exercise was inspired by my brave cousin Jennifer, who had four children, despite her body's protests. After losing her first daughter, she had three more, spending nine months on bed rest for each of them. This exercise is also inspired by the loneliness and loss threaded throughout this poem, by Ofelia Zepeda, Deer Dance Exhibition.)

Writing Exercise # 41

INGREDIENTS

1. What took you so long?

2. What more could you have done?

3. What's eating you? (Literally. Figuratively. Go bananas.)

4. What finds you no matter where you hide?

5. Where did you go when no one noticed?

6. What song or story or monument do your hands resemble? Your eyes? Mouth? Heart?

7. What is constantly at work?

8. What or who was nowhere near one of your greatest accomplishments?

9. What simple thing would you like to do today?

10. What simple thing did you wish for when you were small?

11. What is the meanest you could get?

12. What wish of someone else's would you grant?


- - - -

Write a fairy tale poem to retell your life story or a moment in your life or someone else's life or the life you imagine for a person you mourn/love/admire/fear.

______________________

(This exercise was inspired by the album Wild Go by the outstanding band Dark, Dark, Dark and, specifically, the song -- that I have on repeat for hours at a time most days -- Something For Myself.)


* * *

P.S. Find out how to get your hands on a limited edition chapbook I'm putting together.

Writing Exercise # 40

Let's go, folks.

INGREDIENTS


1. Write down something you do well. A skill or trait you know is TIGHT. Do you know how to love your woman proper? Do you know what it takes to make the perfect tamale? Are you good at forgiving? Flamenco? Lying?

2. Three rules you live by. They can be anything: don't flat iron wet hair. Don't kiss with your eyes open. Always eat the upper right hand corner of the birthday cake.

3. List three things that could have destroyed you BUT DIDN'T.


- - -

Alright. You have a lot of options here. This can be an instructions poem. This can be a praise poem. This can be a wicked ghazal or a message in a bottle buried in your backyard.

Write the magic, spectacular voodoo of you. Is this skill expensive? Did it cost you anything or anyone? Does this trait happen without you even trying? What does it require? Do you need small hands? Do you need to be alert? A good listener? Full of nails? Incorporate one or all of your rules (#2) to live by. Understand how they tie in with this power, how they amplify your ability to do this thing well.

Don't forget to work in the moments from #3 with the rest of the poem. It's okay if they appear as non sequiturs. Or if they are incorporated into the skill. Or if they are what drive you to be such a badass husband/taxidermist/educator/chicken soup maker/guitarist/kisser. It can even be your opener. "I survived a plane crash, and now I knit small sweaters with a steady hand."

Do you!!

_____________________

(This exercise was inspired by the unstoppable Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and her poem The Gospel of Barbecue.)

- - -
P.S. along with yesterday's exercise, I posted a little request. Check it out. There is a limited edition mini-chapbook involved!

Writing Exercise # 39

First, let me tell you that I read the poem that inspired this prompt about five years ago, and it turned my organs around. My insides shifted. I felt it, people! Like a goon, I forgot the title of the poem, as well as its author, but thankfully, my friend Marty knew what I was talking about when I said, "What's that amazing poem about _____ and it had a piano in it?"

Yesterday, I was thinking of how lazy we get in our writing. How, when we're exhausted sometimes, we end up getting all literal and boring. So, let's remember what it is we do again.


INGREDIENTS


1. Similar to the imagery/personification exercise I created way back when, create for yourself a word bank. Think of five to ten beefy words you want to work into today's piece of writing, then decide what objects/people/places/animals best fit each word you have chosen. I usually devote an entire page of a journal to a word. I have "Things That Are Alone" or "Things That Are/Sound/Feel Red", or "Colossal" "Emptying" "Muscled" etc. S T R E T C H that noggin. Get out of that literal box! Swing from that chandelier of a brain you have! Eventually, you won't need a list or journal. Your brain will automatically reach for things beyond itself.

(Sometimes my class would just build a list poem aka "catalog verse" with these items, like "Sixteen Things In A Lonely House" or we'd talk about how, in poetry, certain objects have become universal symbols for other things and we'd design a kookier version for our own writing. The moon is a symbol for femininity or longing or something unreachable, sure. Easy. But what about a pocket wrench? An empty elevator? An unused tube of lipstick?)

This is also where you can remind yourself to allow objects in the poem to set the tone of your writing. I talk about this a lot, I know, but I really feel it is important as writers to keep in mind that everything is capable of witness. In the poem Signs by Samantha Thornhill, "finding a shoe in the woods" is a symbol of fear and anxiety. Robert Hass' A Story About The Body has an unsettling end (I won't give it away) that sits with you long after the prose is finished, because the objects he chose are saturated in private symbolism; they will mean different things to different readers. Classy!


2. Choose a moment you have witnessed between strangers. If you can't think of one, make one up--if you must, choose a moment between friends or family members, but DO NOT involve yourself.

3. Change the scene around. Move it to a different place. Have the event happen in a tight space, like an elevator or a medicine cabinet. Or onstage. In the ocean. Or on a high wire. Or in the library. Let the surroundings constrict or magnify the voices and movements of the people.

- - -

As always, you are the conductor here. There are no rules or guidelines in these exercises, just nudges. Keep the poem in present tense, that's all I ask. Title the poem with either a word or symbol from #1, or with the setting from #3. Let items from your word bank flower the atmosphere. Make sure that, whatever the event is, it adapts to its surroundings. It might struggle, it might prosper. But make sure it is forced to evolve.

____________________________

(This exercise was inspired by the magnificent C.D. Wright poem Tours.)

Writing Exercise # 38

I've used a Diane Arbus photograph in a previous writing exercise, but I don't care. Her images always inspire me in a way that few photographs can; there is always an underlying mood beneath the subjects. You always feel as though they are putting on a show for you, but the facade is ready to disintegrate at any moment.

Today, I'd like to use this photo [click the image to enlarge]:




Decide for yourself who these people are. Where they are. Or if they're really even people. Do they represent something else? What is inside that box? What is beneath that crown? Why have they been dethroned? What are they king and queen of? Who has forgotten them? Which of the two is the least patient? Can't forgive? Is full of music? Has never been kissed?

Writing Exercise # 37

It's been a while since we've used a ghost line. If you are just joining us, or have forgotten what a ghost line is, here's my definition from way back: "A ghost line is an inspiring line or image that becomes the unseen first line of a poem. You know how you underline a favorite line in a book? That's what I do, only I take it a step further and build an entire story or poem off that."

Today's ghost line comes from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Jailbird.

"I had to make up a lot of memories just to fill up all the empty spaces."

Now, go! And if nothing comes to mind, play with this website a little bit until something comes!

Writing Exercise # 36

Write the conversation you should have had. A conversation that, for whatever reason, is impossible to have now. It's okay if it is with yourself. Or with a ghost. Or with a dog or day. Just have it already.

_____________________

(Inspired by Yesterday, by W.S. Merwin)

Writing Exercise # 35

I was thinking a lot about lineage yesterday. About how I don't know much of where I come from. Seeing photos of my [maternal] great-grandparents for the first time yesterday clued me in on small things. I know where my brother gets his nose, where my youngest daughter gets her bone structure.

Of course, we inherit much more than physical features. Which brings me to this exercise...


INGREDIENTS


1. Write down any habits or personality traits that you know you inherited from someone in your family. If you did not grow up with blood relatives, imagine which parts of you were inherited from your birth mother/father, or a distant relative.

2. Write down three spectacular forces of Nature.


3. Write down five objects you equate with either of these words: violence, power, strength.


- - -


This poem can start from anywhere. And by "anywhere," I mean, before you were born, when you were born, shortly after you were born, six years after you were born. Explain the passing down of things (#1). If it's something your great-grandmother hid in a crack in the ceiling, put it there. Explain the day you discovered it. The day you needed it - when the kids chased your brother home from school, during your first kiss, after experiencing that first funeral...

Inherit at least one thing from #2. Or use one of those forces to explain something of or inside you. (Note: whether you choose an animal or a cyclone, make sure you have one of the "things" gather inside you in a large group. Want help with the names of groups of things? HERE YOU GO. It's fun to switch 'em up, so that your fists become a sleeping flock of horses, or your mouth is a wreck of loose kisses.)

Pass some of your traits to other people. Perhaps a daughter, or a son, or a friend who needs it. Shoot, give it to a movie star who needs it. Some wicked celebrity, some soft politician.Give it to them like you would give # 3 to someone. Include the warning or safety measures. Describe where to hide it. How to conceal it among every day attire. Have fun, people. We are all full of amazing things, some we cannot control. So let's ride 'em out of ourselves, and write them into our art.

______________________________

(This exercise was inspired by both the interview and the poem here. Jan Beatty is A MIRACLE BEAST. Buy her books. She is perfect.)

Writing Exercise # 34

Today, I am going to let you be inspired by those who have inspired me. Listen to these poems. These are poets who, back in 2001, made an initial and everlasting impression upon me, who changed my brain for good, who hammered down the wildness in me so I could learn how to build something of it.


Daniel McGinn

Mindy Nettifee

Lucy Anderton

Derrick Brown

June Melby

Chris Tannahill

Rachel Kann

Jeff McDaniel

Writing Exercise #33

You know what I hate more than most things on this planet? Bullies. They come in many forms. They come as politicians, classmates, hurricanes, disease...

So let's keep this simple.

INGREDIENTS

1. List a bully. Just one. Because we can't lose focus.

- - -


Write a curse. If you want to bless them instead, that's cool, too. If you want to curse a philanderer with fourteen daughters, that makes perfect sense. But you gotta get deeper than that. If you want to bless your mother's hands with bowls of forgiveness, you can do that too.

It might be cool to flip from line to line. A curse of this / a blessing of this.
Do you, unless you're standing up for someone else. Then do you, but also give yourself magical powers.

It's clear I need a glass of water. It's been a long day. Peace to you. You're doing great.

____________________________

(This exercise was inspired by the Poet Laureate of My Heart, Martín Espada and his miraculous poem, "Federico's Ghost."

Writing Exercise # 32

I've given this exercise in a few workshops before, but I've always handed out the phobias. In this case, it's up to you:


INGREDIENTS


1. List five phobias you have. If you don't have any, make some up. Need some help? Who's your mommy!?!?!

2. List ten routine things you see in a house. Or a city. Or a church. Or a playground. Or a supermarket.

- - -

Title your poem with one of the phobias as well as the setting you chose for #2. For example, "In The Church of Automatonophobia." Make sure the routine things are tweaked to accommodate their settings. I'll always remember when a poet wrote, "In The Town of the Forgetful / the mayor is a dead elephant / there is no electricity / the daisies deceased..." What do the people here pray to? If you want, write a letter from someone who lives in this place to a person in the "outside world."

If you don't want to do a phobia, and would rather it be "On The Island of Well-Hung Waiters," SWEET.

Dream big, kittens. This is your fairytale. This is your daydream't nightmare. This is your fantasy island getaway. Happy birthday, all the time.

_________________________

(This exercise was inspired by this get-up designed by the late great Alexander McQueen.)

Writing Exercise # 31

I'll be posting a couple more writing prompts today since I'll be on the road for the next two days, and I can't leave my pals hanging during NaPoWriMo! Today's prompt has been itching in me for quite some time. I hope it gets your pens scratching.


INGREDIENTS


1. Three close-calls you or someone you love/know/have read about has experienced.

2. List five things, natural or man made, that you admire.

3. List five things about the person you wrote about in #1 that you admire. (Kudos if you're writing about yourself!)


Have I mentioned lately, how there are no rules? How you can't write something wrong, if you've written ANYTHING? How these are not guidelines, but jumping off points? Like jumper cables, only without the grease on your pants?

- - -

Write out the day of the event from #1. If you don't know by now, I am a huge supporter of atmosphere: set the tone for your poem by using objects, weather, sights and sounds. Don't forget to use the five senses as much as possible.

We are all ghosts of near-deaths. We have all survived something. It doesn't matter how big or small the event is. If you are reading this, you are still here. You can write the event itself, or the aftermath of it. Choose when your car nearly skidded off the road. Choose the drink you turned down on the first day of your sobriety. How things changed. But make sure you mention what didn't change (#2.) The beauty that remains is important. The beauty of #3 is important, too.

If you can't praise the event, praise the survival. Your/his/her quick thinking. Count the blessings. Make them gods if you want. Be a god if you want.

______________________

(This prompt was inspired by one of my favorite poets, Aracelis Girmay, and her poem "To The (Heart) Horse.")

Writing Exercise # 30

This has a chance of being either really silly or really w i c k e d. As usual, it's up to you.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Think back when you were small. Between 5 and 8. Write down as many of the things you wished for back then as you can remember. If you can't remember, imagine it.

2. List three things you were afraid of as a child.


3. List three things that scare you now.


4. List three things that bring you joy, to this day, from way back when.


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Fans of The Twilight Zone know the story of little Anthony from the episode "It's A Good Life." I know it scared the piss outta me when I first saw it. Still does. A boy who is not really the freckle-faced boy before you, but some sort of monstrous being who can destroy you by thinking it. Even his good intentions backfire. A cure for a woman's headache leaves her headless. (This is not in the episode - it's alluded to in the original sci-fi short story, by Jerome Bixby.)

So let's imagine you got what you wished for when you were young. Let's imagine you became the master of all that scared you. Let's pretend your joys were forced upon everyone. Let's imagine you are now the narrator, and the poem is your voice-over, and you are witnessing your young self go about your daily life. Or better, let's imagine your young self's first kiss. Or prom. Whatever you like. But make sure it's kept in third person. And make sure you know better than your young self. I mean, you're from the future, right? Your now is at least a decade or two later than your small self's now. Bring up the thoughts of the people around you. The normal fears (#3) they have, or once had or wished they had, that are now overshadowed by the aftermath of your young self.

There goes little Judy, who is not so little. She is one million-feet tall / she is known to crush houses / and kick over fire hydrants when she is mad / She is whistling the birds out of their nests / and smashing anything that won't shut up. / She doesn't know it yet, but Judy is about to meet the boy of her dreams. / A boy she would shrink herself down for. / Too bad her friend, The Dark, will not approve. / Too bad The Dark has belonged to Judy for so long / she doesn't know how to let go of it.

Writing Exercise # 29

The questions we ask are usually a form of hunger. Some of the questions, of course, are starved and snapping. They have a lot of teeth. While other questions are quieter; small attempts to quench a mild thirst and are equally as kind to us as they are to the person being asked. That said, let's jump in:


INGREDIENTS


1. If you are human, there are at least twenty questions you would like to have answered. They could be questions asked of a former lover, a current lover, a parent, a teacher, a stranger on the street, a god, an animal, a country. They might even be questions that could all be answered by one person. They are questions that burn holes in your coat pocket. Questions that pop up at dumb moments, when you'd rather think or worry or wonder or marvel at something else. One question usually leads to more questions. Write down at least ten of those you need most answered. If you are a more advanced human, you might only have one. Write it down.


- - -

Let's build a pantoum of questions. The form is this:

Stanza 1:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Stanza 2:

Line 5 (repeat line 2)
Line 6 (new line)
Line 7 (repeat line 4)
Line 8 (new line)

Stanza 3:
Line 9 (repeat line 6)
Line 10 (line 3)
Line 11 (line 8)
Line 12 (line 1)

Each line should be a new question, but make sure whichever line you choose to open with is the line you want to close with, too. If it is only one question repeated, try tweaking it. "Did you think of me when you kissed her" can become, "Were my lips beneath her lips?"

Pantoums look strict, but I actually feel a lot looser when working with the form. To get a better idea of how you can alter repeated lines, check out this masterful (and often hard-to-find) pantoum by Maxine Kumin.

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(This exercise was inspired by the frightening poem/fable "The Invisible Men" by the Nakasak Eskimo - scroll down a little to read it @ the site)

Writing Exercise # 28

Let's face it. Some years have been cruel to us. So let's just wring out that year of all its ugliness so we can move on with our beautiful selves, alright? Let's go.


Ingredients:


1. List three moments that will not let go of you.

2. Five honest facts about yourself. They don't have to be deep. They just have to be true.

3. Three skills you wish you had, then expand (for example: carpentry = carving = whittling a forest of brides)

- - -


Call the poem whatever you want, but dedicate it to the year(s) that (one or all of) the events from #1 occurred. It could be the Year of The Divorce. The Year of The Fires. The Year of The Left Behind...The Years of Unimaginable Difficulty and Lost Things.

Write a prayer for yourself. Build a church for yourself. A place where you are allowed to move beyond that terrible year. Weave in the facts about yourself. Allow them to be praise, even if, at first, they were not. If you stated "I am old," good. If you want to expand that, and say "My hair has become a silver lining," good. Allow yourself to create. Take #3 and run with it. Do everything.

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(Today's exercise was inspired by Anne Sexton's "For The Year of The Insane." READ IT.)

Writing Exercise # 27

Let's make an erasure poem from a page out of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road.