After reading through the first half of Solmaz Sharif's collection, Look, I've written out some prompts inspired by her poems. Like most of the prompts I provided, they desired outcome isn't intended to be that you have a bunch of poems similar to Sharif's. I usually glom on to a line or a concept that the author plays with. Or I might just be inspired to write a prompt based on the title that, in no way, reflects what the author wrote on the subject. I hope you find these helpful. Feel free to Tweet links to any poems you make from these prompts to CantabPrompts. 1. Look. Due to the instant access to current events that social media provides, more current existers are exposed to information about their country than ever before, which creates a much more decisive nation, no matter which nation that is. What is The Absolute Most you would endure from your country before you denounced it.
2. Battlefield Illumination. Using just one image, contained in one sentence, tell a complete story. 3. Lay. Tell us about an uncomfortable position you were in. Physically uncomfortable, not morally ambiguous. 4. Contaminated Remains. Create a detailed warning sign that you wish existed. It can be for something serious such as Rules For Interacting With Alligators In the Wild or something less literal like Guidelines For Interacting With My Overly Fragile Male Ego. 5. Safe House. Pick a dictionary page full of interesting words. Begin each line or stanza with a word from that page. Go in alphabetical order. 6. Deception Story. The doctor tells us the needle is not going to hurt. The bus driver tells you their bus is full but the next one is right behind theirs. The check is in the mail. There are lots of little lies people tell to make both you and themselves feel better. When was the last person someone told you a small deception that you immediately recognized as horseshit? Would you rather have had them tell you the truth? When was the last time you told one of these little rot lies? Do you think the other person believed you? Whom do these small deceptions serve? 7. Special Events For Homeland Security. Advertise or describe a party for a group of people based on a profession or hobby that you would absolutely Never Go To. 8. Dear Intelligence Journal. Write a letter to a piece of entertainment or literature that has, on some level, failed you. Tell it how it could have done better by you. 9. Free Mail. How has a group you belong to been misrepresented by society? This can be your gender, your race, your favorite fandom, your occupation, people with similar physicality, your ability, etc. Don't take the easy way out with this. Get really specific. 10. Force Visibility. Is there a word whose meaning you once knew that you, however briefly, couldn't remember. Does that speak at all to you? The person who used it? The situation in which the word was used? 11. Break Up. Write two poems on a similar subject. Create a their poem by allowing the two poems to converse with one another. Maybe alternate stanzas from each. Find some way to merge them into a poem with two distinct voices. 12. Ground Visibility. Create a poem out of a series of disjointed images. Don't bridge them with narrative exposition. Allow the images to tell the story on their own. 13. Desired Appreciation. We all have misconceptions about how being a certain age will change our relationship to the world. What did you think would change after your most recent Significant Birthday. Did it? Will this keep you from putting expectations on your next Significant Birthday? 14. Inspiration Point, Berkley. Maybe you know a painter named Barack Obama or a computer analyst named Stormy Daniels. Tell us about a person who has a famous name but isn't the famous person associated with the name. 15. Defenders/Immediate Family. Tell us about an unglamorous job you performed. Something that needed to be done but would be consider either/both gross or emotionally taxing. 16. Stateless Person. Tell us about a person mostly ignored by history. Perhaps the spouse or child of someone famous. Maybe an inventor of something vital to our society. Educate us. But, you know, poetically. 17. Family Of Scatterable Mines. Make a list of five unrelated possible destinations you might fly or long-distance-drive to: tropical vacation, wedding, funeral, family reunion, moving, etc. For each destination, detail what you would pack (feel free to be surreal or metaphysical). Each trip should have its own stanza, but don't let us know what your destination is, or the reason for your trip, let us guess based on what you've packed. 18. Master Film. Life is complicated and overwhelming almost all the time, right? Was it like this for our grandparents? Our ancestors several generations back? Imagine one of your ancestors between jobs or relationships. What was that like for them? 19. Expellee. Do you remember a time when you were sick as a very young child? Did you know what was going on around you or did it seem alien? 20. Mess Hall. Late twentieth century movies about childhood and coming of age would have you believe that every time kids shared a dining hall, a food fight erupted. I must have gone to the wrong schools. Do you have any memories involving dining halls or being in a restaurant with a large group of friends/acquaintances/coworkers? 21. Theater. When were you the most frightened you've ever been? You don't need to explain why, just focus on the details of the when. 22. Soldier, Home Early, Surprises His Wife At A Chick-Fil-A. What was the most inappropriate surprise you've ever received that didn't involve trauma? Mild embarrassment is okay, but the focus of this should be something that was more irritating or amusing than emotionally damaging. 23. Vulnerability Status. What's the most ridiculous facial expression/pose you've ever been in? Were you aware that it was unusual at the time, or was it pointed out to you? What events preceded it? Was the facial expression/pose ever repeated? Have you ever seen anyone else make something similar? 24. Reaching Guantanamo. Write a series of five letters to the same person. It should be a very personal series of letters. Once you are finished writing them, go back and white out/erase/somehow obscure the personal information that you wouldn't want to share with the world at large, or remove information you think the government would classify before sending the letters.
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While switching out bookcases this week, I found a pile of books that I had been missing since February. Many were books that I have already done interactions for, but one was Roll Deep by Major Jackson. As I think I'm ready to start reading poetry again, after a several month long hiatus, I decided to read this, simply as it was on the top of the pile. I'll probably do a few different types of interactions with it in the next few days, but I figured I'd start by making a series of prompts that each poem inspired. 1. Reverse Voyage. Tell a story about the place where you live that mainly focuses on the architecture and geography. Not just rolling hills, cracked pavement, the ocean. Tell us about the stores that have disappeared, the ugly yellow fence that is older than you are, the faded yellow lines in the middle of your street. What does the physical landscape tell you about what it's like to live there right now?
2. Greece. Give us the opposite of homesickness. Show your reader a place that is important to you by intertwining at least one piece of historical importance of the area, one specific memory involving you and another person (if there was one) while you were there, and a sprinkling of that time's meteorology (was it raining? were there birds? could you smell trees or the local capitalism?). 3. Spain. Layers of morning pastries flaked gingerly/then fell, soft as vowels, on a china plate. Get your simile on and describe a conversation using food imagery. It can be a disccussion that changed your life, or it can be about how bored you were on a first date. Make us hungry with the wish that we'd been there, or let us journey into the meal with you to escape the conversation. 4. Brazil. How we move in our day to day lives is our own form of dance and martial art. Tell us about a particular motion you do (if you can't think of one, ask someone who would notice this sort of thing about you to help you out) and how it signifies your relationship to your everyday life. 5. Kenya. Write a security briefing about part of your day. Identify the threats around you, and how you intend to avoid them, imagine which information you contain is most likely to be targeted for espionage, and point out any suspicious behavior you encounter. 6. Italy. If someone were dreaming of you, what would they be dreaming about? 7. On Disappearing. If you were to suddenly disappear from the place where you lived, how do you think people would speculate your absence? Would the place be significantly different without you? Would anyone figure out where you'd gone? 8. Mighty Pawns. Tell us about someone you know who is an expert at something not enough people value. Maybe they can solve a Rubik's Cube in under a minute. Maybe they make the best mashed potatoes ever eaten. Tell us about them, why their skill is so impressive to you, and why they would still be impressive even if they lacked that skill. 9. Dreams Of Permancence. Walk around your building or neighborhood until you discover something you haven't noticed before. Tell us about it in vivid detail. 10. Stand Your Ground. I'm not usually a fan of poems that address the nation or city or neighborhood we are from. Too often, they get so large of scope that they feel generic and trite. But you're a good writer. You can handle it. Address a poem to a place that is important to you. Tell it some things you appreciate, and some things it needs to repair. Bonus points if you can make it a Golden Shovel. 11. Thinking Of Our Shame At The Gas Pump. What would you like your last words to be? What do you think that says about your humanity? 12. OK Cupid. Get yourself blissfully lost in a simile/list poem. Make a statement about how one thing is like another thing and keep chaining similes until you feel like you're finished. Then continue for five or six more similes. 13. Calypso's Magical Garden. If you don't own your dreams, who does? What are they doing with them? 14. Aubade. What things do you wish you could be doing rather than trying, and failing, to sleep? 15. Special Needs. In the mornings, I rub my hands together/back and forth summoning the angels/away from the orthodoxy of façades. Damn. Tell us about a morning ritual you have, what it means to you, and what happens if you are unable to complete it. 16. Inscription. Imagine the object of you affection is a place, a ritual, a type of clothing, a meal, a time of day. Describe them only in metaphor. Don't tell us how you feel about them. Let the images do your emotional storytelling for you. 17. Night Steps. If you've never spent some time staring out a window at night, then maybe poetry isn't for you. What have you seen or not seen when zoning out, your eyes pointed at the outside world. 18. Cries & Whispers. Over the course of a day, write down three things that you're fairly sure you'd forget if you didn't write them down. Let that list sit somewhere for a week. Now come back and tell us whether or not those three things were important, and why. 19. On Cocoa Beach. Revisit your relationship to a place you hate or fear. Is the emotion you've tied to that place rational? Do you think you could overcome it? Why should you bother trying to overcome it when there other, less draining, places to go? 20. Ode To Mount Philo. How you travel through a place shows us a lot about your relationship to a place. If you take a subway through the city, you're going to have a different experience than walking, riding a bicycle, or driving a car. Take us on a small journey through a place that's important to you, using two different modes of transport. 21. Enchanters Of Addison County. Show us a place that's important to you as it travels through seasons. Even if you live somewhere equatorial, there is a difference between the winter and the summer. Physically, what changes about the important place? Are there different people there for different seasons? Does the way you feel about the place change as well? 22. Self-Portrait As The Allegory Of Poetry. What's in your trash can right now? Why? 23. Pathetic Fallacy. Ask a series of spiritual questions of yourself. Don't answer them. 24. Fundamentals. Write a three stanza poem where the first stanza is focused on something aural, the second stanza deals with how something is named, and the third stanza incorporates camera angles and perspective. 25. Canon Of Proportions. Tell us about a famous person born before the 20th century, and how they would interact with a piece of modern technology. For example, Jackson mentions that Thomas Jefferson was never a frequent flier. Tell us about Napoleon's arguments over fraudulent credit card charges, what games Mahatma Gandhi plays on his cell phone. 26. Energy Loves Here. Find an album or playlist that's important to you, and freewrite to it, occasionally making reference to images or lyrics that appear in the music. 27. Why I Write Poety. Let's assume you've already written a poem about why you write poety. Write a poem about what's keeping you from writing poetry more often. I.
The page where my interest was lost, premier and pretentious, a great grey gust of gibberish. Phileas Fogged down in the derails. Do you remember when we named the dog Indiana? A wooden chalice chosen holy? On the red line to work the other day I saw people whose skin color was not the same as mine, and that didn't tell me anything deep about who they were as people. I did not try and imagine who they were. I did not smugly appropriate their experiences. Whether or not they're American is not important. I hope they had a phenomenal day in the wondrous weather. Unless they're jerks. Then, I hoped they all stubbed all of their toes. Last night in the undulating darkness of the thesaurused night my unconcsciousness theatred a script of fancy. I shan't describe it to you. Orwell says happiness can only exist in acceptance. I am jubilant that this book is not for me. II. My eyes are in the text while my heart is in the kitchen the bedroom on a beach somewhere with a better book. The exasperating sea of prose summed up by the coda where the writer admits having nothing interesting to say He wins awards for writing about how he doesn't know how to write beginnings or endings. The middles are choppy, too. III. The difference between experience and writing about experience is more than perspective. Is more than let me tell you. Is more than show. No matter how much I enjoy a turkey and cheese sandwich, no matter my fascination with the post-credit adventures in Super Mario Odyssey, if all I have to say is ass bounce reveals moon twinkling over top hat while the crumbs catch in my goatee, then that is all I should say. I'm not sure how to start telling you how much I enjoy sitting in the solitude of my air conditioned house collecting purple snowflakes while the turkey and cheese sandwich that I am unsure how to describe sits on the plate whose importance I am having trouble describing to you reminds me of a dream I'm not going to tell you about because I lack the ability makes me wish I was white water rafting while this book fell behind the shelves confusing the lonely spider. 5. Yodaing Your Inner EE Cummings The best E.E. Cummings poems (and they're not all great) are rhyming jumbles of misordered syntax that make complete sense the very first time you read them. The worst E.E. Cummings poems sound like pretentious, forced, classroom exercises. You understand why a bunch of publishers passed on some of his manuscripts. You were probably smacked in the eyes with some Cummings poems in high school or college, if those were your thing. If not, there are a plethora of sources . Try writing two or three poems modeled after his syntax and rhyme scheme. Know that the end result is not to have two or three good EE Cumming homages. Allow them to be awful, if you need to. If you hate them, pull some odd syntax from the wreckage of these poems and delete the detritus before anyone else sees them. Save a list of rhyming end words for lines that you didn't want to salvage. Maybe you can use them in future poems, if you decide to write something with internal rhyme. Once you've filed away all the pieces of these poems that you want to save, take your favorite weirdly grammared phrase, and make that a title for your next poem. 6. Google Translate Is Just 21st Century Slang For Babelfish
In the early twenty-first century, several poets, myself included, had poems where we took source material, entered it into the Babelfish online translator in English, and asked for it to be translated into, say, Spanish. Then we had it translated to, say, Mandarin. Then we ran it through, say, Arabic. Finally, we translated it back into English. What we were given was vastly different from the original input, and, oh, but wasn't it wryly amusing to see how the translation telephone game had changed our words. For this exercise, run something you've already written, but maybe don't love (or maybe something you love, your choice) through at least three different languages via Google Translate. If you end up liking the poem that comes out of that exercise, cool! You've got a poem. But, if not (and it's probably going to be a not), find unusual phrases that you never would have come up with on your own, but make sense to you, and try building poems around those phrases. Or, to put it another way: In the early 21st century, many poets, including me, had poems using our original material that the Babelfish translator introduced in English and suggested to translate it into Spanish. Then we translated it and spoke to Mandarin. Then we went through it, we spoke Arabic. Finally, we translate it into English. What we offer is very different from the original input and oh, but it's not ridiculous to see how the game of mobile games changed our word. Before this exercise, run things you've already written, but you can not (or maybe liked your choice) like at least three different languages with Google Translate. If you like a poem from workouts it's very cool! You have poetry. But if it does not happen (and maybe not), find unusual words that you never get to yourself, but it makes sense for you and try to create poems about it. Or also, to say: In the 21st century, we introduced Babelfish Artiner in English, including poetry, including poetry, and offered it for Spain. Then we got killed and talked to the monitor. Then we left and talked in Arabic. After all, we ask you to speak English. What we find is different from the original settings, but it does not prevent the tone of the sound changing the tone. We've done things we've written before, but you can not (or maybe choose the best) with a Google Translator on at least three different occasions. If you want poetry from good works! If you are not a poet (and perhaps you are not), learn great words that you are not, but try to build poetry with and with you. I laid out several recentish collections of poetry on my desk, and then formed them into a pile. I picked up the top book, and looked for words in the text that made for an interesting line, and then kept going until I was done with that particular poem. Then I grabbed the second book, shuffling the pile immediately. You don't have to do any of this. I just wanted to make this totally random. I am writing these poems in a notebook which I've called "What I'm Currently Reading". I write each mini-erasure in one color ink pen, switching colors every time I switch books. I haven't finished my poem yet, but here are my first two pages of mined lines/stanzas, and the corresponding text they came from: Logic is ten percent recovered from bone opened to crude reason The brain monsters a residence in the captive ritual of absence imagine your head is god soft fontanels of youth break this smoking hole beyond churchless quiet deliver me past noticed the abandoned bed of shy recognition No wonder These days you sleep in an older language Nothing pretending to be sick but comfortable Behind angry forgiveless power each death: a lost howling There is no ruthless in blame who sang a permission of filling pages I'm barely made of childhoods a form of architecture I found ragged If I scratched forth yesterday's treachery by factually exposing each death defying twitch If I interrupt a word in fullest wiggling tumble feathers made of plastic grace singing clamor and providence fragment unthreatened as a tombstone dug up in sin I am transparent in summer Always speckled weird that tastes superior I wonder if some seaside faded fireflies will calmly mention the sleep they do not believe will arrive Poems excised from:
1. Sam Sax "On Trepenation" (http://www.wintertangerine.com/on-trepanation/) 2. Rachel McKibbens "Deeper Than Dirt" (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/deeper-dirt) 3. Major Jackson "Dreams Of Permanence" (https://newrepublic.com/article/61818/dreams-permanence) 4. Matthew Zapruder "Poem For Massachusetts" (http://floatingwolfquarterly.com/5/matthew-zapruder/5/poem-for-massachusetts) 6. Rachel McKibbens "Letter From My Brain To My Heart" (http://quondam-dreams.blogspot.com/2013/03/you-have-my-permission-not-to-love-mei.html) 7. Li-Young Lee "Trading For Heaven" (https://books.google.com/books?id=W2WcAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=li young+lee+trading+for+heaven&source=bl&ots=65nbEzC0w3&sig=h0RkP4aLLzGb0wdWuraPQJIxxYI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG8aKSmbPYAhUQMd8KHexGAlUQ6AEISTAF#v=onepage&q=li-young%20lee%20trading%20for%20heaven&f=false) 8. William L. Boyd "Backup For A University" 9. Patricia Lockwood "The Hunt For A Newborn Gary" (https://books.google.com/books?id=g7SKDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=patricia+lockwood+hunt+for+a+newborn+gary&source=bl&ots=fp-3C-zzQS&sig=pjvUfxocm0oC9hY6xB68W2BLIY8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFg6b7mbPYAhVCZN8KHXThAfgQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=patricia%20lockwood%20hunt%20for%20a%20newborn%20gary&f=false) 10. Danez Smith "Faggot Or When The Front Goes Up" 11. Matthew Zapruder "I Drink Bronze Light" (https://pen.org/i-drink-bronze-light/) 12. Major Jackson "Tour Of The Food Distribution Point, Ifo" I often find myself getting stuck in the same writing patterns. Even when I'm writing about people or subjects I haven't tackled before, I use similar verbiage, images that cropped up in previous poems. And that's okay. Lots of writers get famous by having a style that allows themselves to repeat images across entire manuscripts. Self-referentialism isn't the worse thing that can happen, but it can be tiring to write, especially if you're not doing it on purpose. So for January, my goal is to write at least eight poems that don't necessarily sound like poems I've already written. Here are the eight prompts I'll be working with to alter the way I write: 1.) The Grand Erasure. Erasures can be great, but they're tough. Typically, an erasure takes an existing poem, or essay, or speech, or story. The poet then takes a marker or scissors or some implement and whittles the words in the poem down until it creates an entirely new piece of art. (examples: Form N-400 Erasures, Trump Inauguration Erasure, Louis CK's Apology Erasure, and this entire website of erasures) We're not getting that specific at all. Take at least five books of poems. Open the first book at random. Locate a word on the page that speaks to you, then find another word nowhere near it that might follow, keep doing this until you have at least the beginning of a phrase, maybe as much as a stanza. Now open a second book and do the same thing. This second book that you've randomly opened to might continue the theme or it may not offer anything remotely similar. That's ok. We're not trying to get a whole poem out of these erasures, we're mining for images and phrases we may not have come up with. Don't steal an image. If a poem says: A bear opens a refrigerator with an app designed for otters but the refrigerator doesn't care It opens for anyone hungry It does not care who calls it cold Sometimes we have to be cold to preserve the parts of ourselves other people need you should not take "a bear opens a refrigerator" or "the parts of ourselves other people need". Instead maybe "a bear...designed for...hungry...calls...to preserve...need" That's probably not something you would have come up with without seeing it in someone else's poem. The idea of a Grand Erasure is to get maybe ten of these phrases or stanzas, and then use as many of them as you see fit to write a new poem or poems. There's no rule about using all of what you've scavenged. You can rework the phrases or images you find however you want. Don't be a slave to what you've removed, let it guide you to a poem that you wouldn't have otherwise written. 2. Remix To Sing This is a pretty basic prompt that I don't use as often as I should. Take a piece of your own work, or a poem you love by someone else, and create a new poem using only the words from that text. You don't have to use every word, but use as many as you can to say something different (not necessarily taking the opposite stance from the original...make it surreal...take a poem about frogs and make it a love song to Florida if the text allows it). As with any of my prompts, don't feel boxed in by the rules. If you want to use a word more times than it appears in the actual text, go for it. Is it lacking the preposition you want? Add it in. You might not end up with your finished product purely by remixing. You may get done with the remix, and think it doesn't do what you want it to. That's okay. Now you have the beginning of something you wouldn't otherwise have. Tear out what you don't what. Add transitions that are absolutely not from your original text. Scrap 3/4s of the poem, but keep a series of images or phrases that you like. Discover that, out of this three page poem that you chose, that there's only a five line section that you like. Congrats, you have a five line poem. Save the rest in a word doc or notebook for later. 3. The iPod Shuffle You can use Spotify, or a CD shuffle, whatever technology you have that allows songs to show up at random. Take the first ten (or twenty, or whatever number you like, it's your life) titles of songs that come up. Use all those words in a poem. But it can't be a love poem. It can be about something or someone you love, but it can't be about A Nebulous You, or a pick-up line poem. It can be surreal. It can be about work. Anything but a love poem. Ok, and then also use all those words for a love poem. Who am I to tell you what to do with your words? And remember, if you don't like the first ten (or however many you choose) titles that come up, shuffle again. 4. Taming Your Thesaurus There are prose writers and poets who cherish their their thesauruses. They utilize the most ornate lexemes to manufacture profound testimony from tedious abstractions. They make me tired and unimpressed. Find one of these fancy poems, and thesaurus it down to its most base language. (Here's one of my favorites.) Take that poem skeleton, and use your thesaurus (or thesaurus.com if you, like me, burned your thesaurus in a fit of rage during the 90s) to find synonyms that you would never use. Now use them. Choose the five (or ten, or two...it's your life) words that most repel you, and find a way to work it into a poem you don't hate. It can just be a random word in your poem, it can be the title, the whole poem can just be about how much you hate that word/those words. I buy most of my books in bookstores. When I do order a collection of poetry online, I tend to order the cheapest copy available. Not just to be frugal, or to take the most advantage of online shopping, but because many of these books come used, often by students who have filled the margins with notes. These notes are usually Hella Basic. Which is fine. It might be their first time experiencing poetry. Or they were forced to take this class and have been told to take notes, but have no idea what parts of a poem are important. Or they are experts and their notes are well-researched and fascinating, and drive me to explore more. The copy of Yusef Komunyakaa's Talking Dirty With Gods that I received was Hella Basic. But without me having to do any editing, they produced a poem I quite like. These are the notes with the linebreaks, punctuation, and capitalization as they appeared in the book. Stanza breaks occur when there are many notes for one poem, although there are some stanzas that represent several poems, which only had one note in them. A Young Reader's Guide To Yusef Komunyakaa's
Talking Dirty With Gods, As Written By A Young Reader Beastly man Virgin huntress legend that Judas in the Bible hanged himself on. He stands for a betrayer -a skinning knife monster made of different parts God of doors that had 2 heads formalist - relation to title? sociological - sum up main points? painting river of the dead shorebird not too high, not too low consequences of childlike behavior --> (indecipherable) copy animal's abilities -King of the gods -cares -makes himself off as the victim -entertainer ladies man promotes peace promotes social interaction -fire center of attention -large disastrous fire -trickster -player -used many disgui - bull sheperd eagle Zeus = Jupiter -singing -thrumming -playful flirtation -goddess of marriage wife of Zeus -twins raised by wolves & are the founders of the city of ROME -nipples -a museum in flame }we start believing our lies <strike>he gets aroused</strike> -act of having weight Romulus kills Remus to her children necrophilius DEAD :City of the dead city Museum b/c that's where all the artifacts are: The sarcophagi vials of ash, etc. -b/c its the city of angels wealth, <strike>& business</strike> is busy -partial shadow <strike>+ an eclipse</strike> -egyptian god <strike>the end</strike> of the afterlife/death -a stone coffin -EARLY ARCheologists -a sailor that was always drunk traitor -A faun-like God of sheep & flock. He was <strike>in</strike> linked to God of <strike>Isis</strike> Thionisis Also known as the one that discovered music Greek God Of Lust [He made people fall in love (like Cupid)] - you are in on it. you're part of the process -a poet -crazy love -------difficult to define <strike>rampant</strike> }He wAs pAn being moved on -a RiveR (no control) a handsome, seductive, jealous maRRied man a nobleman frequently in love affairs. (mAnwhoRe) -wishes -intimacy -touch - sexual ---longing ---dry die > obstacle He desires For her to speak Of him intimately --wants to hear her say his name -obsession --battle ? -Killing of Babies -mostly women female Babies T: women try to escape the fate lives they live ---out of the dead curled milk - sour action of having sex -action of having sex -engage from -past...upbringing crazy? sounds? of sex? -condom? -cum? -virgin? -dildo? -porn? - - Americans - open to sex non-Americans-closed -sexual implication -pain reliever -enjoying -pleasure pain of last love death connotations, sin + temptation? -->demon in the form of a man (indecipherable) woman to seduce one in dreams -not 1st time! -->not pleasant -->familiar scent -->sex, intimacy }bold but afraid -abusive sun ] -->actress, model 50s & 60s -->art of Dadaism --. Surrealism -improper - most evil time (opposite 3pm - most holy) --? -->soul, (indecipherable) --inability to move on -->dirty doves in chimney creator of -trap -found in chimney -->fire, burning, escape, dirty secretive sneaky Traditional spAnish. Remedies -old person or old ways CHIldren or meN Sadly, poet John Ashbery died this week. He wasn't a huge influence on me or my writing, but I often enjoyed how he chose to evoke feelings rather than use a traditional narrative. To celebrate his memory, I read one of his more recent collections, A Worldly Country . Here are twenty prompts based on the first twenty poems from the book. 1. Worldly Country: Imagine a day where complete chaos has run over the world. Not a violent apocalypse, but a day of complete inexplicable weirdness. But just One Day of it. The next day, everything's back to normal. What caused that day? And what happened during it? Will we ever know how it got back to normal?
2. To Be Affronted (directly from the text of the poem): Imagine a movie that is the same/as someone's life, same length, same ratings./Now imagine you are in it, playing the second lead,/a part actually more important than the principals'./How do you judge when it's more than/half over? 3. Streakiness: Imagine that it's not people who prefer to go out in good weather, but weather conditions that prefer to come out only for certain people. What's their criteria? Do clouds have a different agenda than the wind? 4. Feverfew (directly from the text): What if we are all ignorant of all that has happened to us? 5. Opposition To A Memorial: Describe, in detail, the quality of an intangible concept. For example, what would "I can't find my cellphone" look like if it were a house. How would you envision "How am I going to explain this to my mother?" 6. For Now: Forgive yourself for something you did out of ignorance. Still keep yourself accountable, and lay out a way you can, in some way, account for that mistake. 7. Image Problem: If your life was a novel, let's assume it was divided up into chapters. Where does your fist chapter end? Why there? 8. Litanies: Make a short list. A list of days, or seasons, or flavors in a single packet of Skittles. Something manageable. Now decide which of those things is The Best of them, and offer that thing praise, and excuse it any shortcomings it might have. 9. Like A Photograph: Everyone reading this has, at some point tripped, and then carried on as if nothing had happened. If you have mobility issues, maybe your transport very temporarily stopped working. What was your inner-monologue like immediately following the issue? Did any part of your actions or speech betray that monologue? 10. A Kind Of Chill: Even non-human animals must get bored of their jobs from time to time. Narrate a nature documentary of an animal with ennui. 11. One Evening, A Train: Dismiss someone or something from your presence. Let it know, in no uncertain terms that they/it is not only no longer needed, but no longer allowed near you. 12. Mottled Tuesday: Something is about to go horribly wrong at a grocery store or retail establishment. Watch it unfold. Tell us about it. 13. Old Style Plentiful: Passive Aggressive Notes was a popular website about a decade ago. Write an extremely passive aggressive ode to something or someone you like, but which is driving you crazy. 14. Well-Scrubbed Interior: Is there a part of you that you feel is understaffed? Maybe your temper could use more employees, or your heart needs a new manager. Write a want-ad to fill the positions you can afford to fill. 15. Cliffhanger: In all plays, even Hamlet, the scenery/is the best part. Describe the scenery in your favorite play, movie or book. Focus on the scenery. If you can somehow make that tell the story without using any dialog or describing people's actions or motivations, then you are a true professional. 16. The Ecstasy: If history was a single building, what would it look like? Would you want to stay there? For how long? 17. Filigrane: Give an evacuation order for part of your past. Explain how it will benefit from leaving you. If the spirit moves you, give it conditions for the possibility of its return. 18. Ukase: Write a celebration of nature using a thesaurus for at least 1/3rd of the words in the poem. You don't have to slot the frilliest words, just the vocabulary you wouldn't commonly chisel. 19. Casuistry: What would happen if morning didn't come when it was expected? What would come in its place? How would you handle it? 20. Andante Favori: The end of summer can be a depressing time, particularly when you're a kid and have to say goodbye to all of your summer friends (or are summer friends mostly a construct of living in a seasonal economy tourist trap?). Tell us about how the change of a season affected your emotional well being. My John Ashbery books mostly sit on the shelf, muttering softly to the neighboring books. I think A Worldly Country could tell by the way I lifted it from between its neighbors that its author was dead. I read through it, maybe for the first time since I bought it. Maybe for the first time ever. I came up with a series of prompts based on the writing. And now, here is a poem that was slated to be a Maggie Nelson interaction. It may also end up being a Maggie Nelson poem , but for now it is definitely a John Ashbery interaction. 2. Burying My Head In The Pillow
The capital of sleep has been walled off by whatever tyrant is currently wearing the shiniest tiara. The passengers on the train that no longer stops there don't even bother to look up from their crossword puzzle to reminisce about what isn't so much lost as currently unavailable. Twenty-one down is a thirteen letter imaginary word for the shade of whatever color you imagine represents the exhaustive collapse of willpower to try and improve society. No one has solved it yet. Even the birds obey the wall's strict existence. The trees argue over whether the sun will even bother to show up tomorrow since all of mornings checks have bounced this month. Don't forget your sweater. Not that you're forgetting things. I'm just saying that today would be a terrible day to start. Visual formatting is important to me, so when I first opened Jon Pineda's Little Anodynes, I was skeptical. All of his poems are little gutters of words two inches wide. All of his poems. I was skeptical. The quotes on the back of his book are arranged in two two inch gutters. I was skeptical. But I like his amuse-bouche style memoirettes. Though the poem they inspired ended up being much longer than his. A History Of Smoke
The third time your roommate almost burns down the house in a grease fire You wake up to a smoke filled bedroom Worse than onions rotting on the kitchen counter Inexplicable spoons buried in the soil of house plants You are gagging awake There is no fire yet just smoke Get out Turn the stove off and douse the pan obviously before you go to work smelling like irresponsible Like the failing restaurateur desperate for insurance Work all day with that resin of averted tragedy clinging to what you will later remember as what used to be your favorite shirt When you get home blow out each room Soak the curtains in perfumed soap Buy a new filter for the vacuum Mop every surface in the kitchen until every sponge is kombu Keep the roommate Evict the behavior Try and remember a brand of cigarette that you both hate the smell of Say parliaments are your father’s whiskers left in the sink Newports are the last roommate who tried to burn down your house Not with a grease fire but with candles and grief and the haunting of a dead mother Grieving with smoke Cooking with smoke Everyone you love is charcoal briquettes Wood chips at the base of your temper Everyone kindling Say camels are tomato flavored fruit roll ups People forget tomatoes are fruit Don’t linger on fruit as an insult Don’t consider yourself a tomato Don’t imagine your past as smoke Say salems are You know what don’t say salems at all not because of its proximity to witches Their burning Their smoke Don’t say salems because of course another ex asked you to buy salems and hide them Openly gay Closeted smoker Only in emergencies you were to produce a single salem He already had a lighter waiting He was a state of constant emergency You were a telemetry nurse A cigarette machine Say you never love the fire just the aftermath The stench Say cling again but don’t know for certain if you speak of the lovers or the smell Stay up all night trying to understand yourself Lose your sense of chronology until you can only remember when you are by the flavor of cigarette wisping or pluming or whatever word describes the barely visible traces of burning tobacco but fail to consider the weight left in its tiny wake Remember the camel lights who lived in your bed just long enough for you to quit smoking You hated the smell of camel lights for a decade You hated the smell from the moment you met him You were always a marlboro man Masculinity dreamed up by an advertising executive who believed filtered cigarettes were too feminine The circumcised cock as a cowboy hat Your addiction was always rock hard They say you never quit wanting cigarettes and mostly you think they’re right After two hours in a dead car with a stranger who had ruined her life ruining one of your friend’s life you called the man you stupidly loved and begged a cigarette for the first time in ten years The first inhale was like kissing him again Wrong the moment your lips parted so you kept them together for as long as you could Breathing each other You made it halfway through the cigarette before giving him the option of taking it from you or letting you crush it beneath your shoe He didn’t want it back You haven’t wanted a cigarette since But you buried you face in his pillow every time he left his bed that you slept in breathing in everything killing him as if it was keeping you alive It was so familiar The first man you stupidly loved was the same brand But you were so younger enough to be happy dying with each other You couldn’t taste the rot of you The first day the world turned without him you slept on the couch with his fucken marlboro spiced sweatshirt over your face to block out the unrelenting morning He told you he’d call you and maybe you’d beach day Or maybe you’d smoke on the patio until night wisped You waited by the phone until you couldn’t decide whether you were angry or sad And when you found out he decided to die without you you soaked his sweatshirt with the butane of your grief |
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