A Writer's Spirit Prompt #9

Today, try to unlock a different part of the creative mind by engaging in a type of imaginative play that is different from your norm. If, like me, you tend to create only with words, you might consider trying to execute a drawing—a self-portrait, perhaps, or a spring blossom. You might also try singing or playing music, or attempting a craft, like paper-making or wire sculpture. Whatever you try, give it an honest but non-judgmental attempt, just to see how far you can take this other medium. Maybe you’ll surprise yourself—or maybe you won’t, but you’ll at least explore another wrinkle in your capacious, inventive brain.

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I’m offering contemplative prompts for poets all through April, National Poetry Month. If you subscribe to Better View of the Moon, you never need to miss one.

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #8

You’ve probably been informed that there are things you can’t do. Center a poem. Start a poem with a definition. Start with waking or end with sleeping.

But don’t some poems demand to be written in a way the workshop hates? And isn’t that the pure pleasure of leaving the workshop behind? The people who told you that there couldn't be a good essay on ___, or that no one needs another ___ story, or that there are too many poems about ___—they’re off somewhere, not writing about whatever it is they prohibit, and here we are, left to our devices, free to write about sex or motherhood or cancer or all three at the same time.

Your challenge today—again, a contemplative challenge instead of a poetry challenge—is to write down every rule anyone has ever tried to give you for your poetry. That includes anything you’ve heard outlawed or mocked by professors, classmates, or editors, and it also includes anything you’ve been telling yourself.

Read over your list when you’re done with it. Such a constipated way of thinking about poetry is at least worth a good laugh. Maybe, too, there’s a prompt in it. You could write a poem right now that is centered, or that has a single obvious rhyme, or that contains an obvious bookend, or that uses the word “love” like it’s your turf or something.

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A Writer's Spirit Prompt #7

I seem to remember that as a child, I spent a lot of time in proto-science activities—splitting the stalk of a dandelion with my thumbnail to see the milk inside, watching the weird slow-fast morph of clouds, looking for the source of the birdsong. I remember the simple amazement of dirt, and how black it was beneath the surface, and what little things were in it--bugs and stones and tiny snails.

In keeping with yesterday's prompt, engage in a little proto-science today. Recapture that feeling of having a child's sharp senses, and explore anything handy—what’s in the dark recess under the porch, what the inside of rock looks like if you break it, what the cat's footprint looks like. Just look and wonder. And as always, write if you want.

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A Writer's Spirit Prompt #6

Set aside some time today to recapture a memory of your distant past. I just did this myself. I went to the school playground all by myself and I picked out a swing. Remember that? You’d go to the swing set and look for one that was just the right height, and you’d settle in and kick off—feet pointed forward for coming and knees bent for going.

I lost some time swinging. I tried to recapture the pure memory of the motion while I forgot everything about my actual day. It worked, too. It took very few backs and forths before my musculature took over. My quadriceps remembered; my gluteus maximus; my hamstrings; my Achilles tendon. And my mind cleared itself of minutiae, and when I was done I was ready to do a writer’s work.

There are plenty of ways to reconnect to that child self, it occurs to me. I could finger paint or make cookies; I could record my height on the jamb of the door. Choose a physical action from your childhood and give yourself over to it. Afterwards, if writing comes ... let it. Maybe your child self has something to say.

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I hope you’re enjoying this series of prompts, which are not for poems, but rather for fostering a poetic mindset, without the pressure a poem-per-day prompt set sometimes carries. Please consider subscribing to this blog so you don't miss a prompt—offered every day in April, National Poetry Month.

A Writer’s Spirit Prompt #5

Today, we kick out the stool.

Remember yesterday’s prompt? You recorded your habits, preferences, and rituals, as if you were an anthropologist, studying a culture. Today, you mess with that culture. Did your subject (you) require morning writing time? Write in the evening. Did you require a computer? Use pen and paper; use crayon to really shake things up. Change your place, your time, your tools, your habits of mind. And do some gentle writing—no expectations. What happens? Does the writing change?

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #4

Most writers have habits of mind or practice, and some of these habits can rise to the level of ritual. But sometimes these behaviors are not even conscious ones. We find ourselves writing in certain ways, with certain tools, at certain times of day. Today’s prompt asks you to describe your writer self in your most descriptive terms, as if you are observing yourself from a distance (e.g., “When Karen writes, she uses the bluest pen, with bright thick ink that globs when she stops”).

This is a writing prompt, but do not feel pressured to make a poem from it. You’re just an anthropologist, recording the habits of the locals—or rather, one local: yourself. If something comes of this, go with it.

Looking ahead, tomorrow’s prompt will ask you to think of ways to disrupt your habit—so be as faithful a recorder as you can today, and if you can’t think of anything you typically or “always” do, make something up. Imagine your ideal conditions.

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #3

Head to the grocery store and buy something new. For me, I think I’d go for one of those whole sugarcanes in the produce section—those great stalks I’m not sure how to break into, but that I know are filled with sweetness. I’ve always considered buying one, just to see what they’re like.

The prompt: Savor the new tastes and texture of your choice—the rip or snap or bend of it, how it feels against tooth or tongue, the sharpness or saltiness or sweetness, whatever about it surprises. Let words come. Let yourself trace it back to its origin. Say you’re sampling an exotic cheese; can you taste the grass the cow ate? Do you smell salt on the wind? Let the food—a gift from the Earth—transport you.

As with all of these conceptual prompts, there is no pressure to write—just to explore and imagine, using food as your guide.

A Writer's Spirit Prompt #2

Poetry, for me, is connection. It is made of breath and observation and words, which are transformed in the gut and brain of the poet, the hottest smelter available for refining meaning. My suggestion today: Pay close attention to some natural thing. (I did this yesterday, and I chose a bright tiger swallowtail farming a lilac blossom. I felt lucky to see something I had names for—more than butterfly or flower.) Today, watch some natural thing—even the rain or snow through your window—and breathe into it. Really observe it. Then grab a pen and see what words suggest themselves. You don’t have to do anything with them; you’re merely the transcriptionist, and your job is to get them down. Maybe later you can make a poem—or not. The point is the watching, not producing.

A Writer's Spirit: The healing waters of Eureka Springs

Where I am: a town with springs, where people once came to heal.

I’m on a writing retreat in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a place I like to come from time to time, and a place I give my partner and he gives back, alternating months, because children are little beauty machines that run on minutes and hours, like noisy parking meters that accept only time.

It’s good to get away—and then it’s good to come home.

I’ve worked hard this trip—not much time for fun—but during a recent visit I went on a popular ghost tour at a grand hotel, the Crescent Hotel. (I didn’t see any ghosts. It seems I am willing to believe in them somewhat more than they are me.)

The tour recounted the hotel’s start as grand resort, with tea dances and coach rides, then as a college and conservatory for women, but most significant to the tour was its stint as a hospital for the desperately ill, starting in 1930.

To shorten a long tale, the person who started the hospital, Norman Baker, a former magician and radio personality, gave cancer patients pseudo-treatments made from watermelon seed, corn silk, and clover. The tour guide recounted how he had patients sign blank pages upon admission, and then his staff wrote letters home on their behalf, touting the patient’s improvement and enjoyment of the stay. Some of these letters were apparently sent after the patient’s death, and the ghost tour culminates in a basement room where bodies were sometimes kept on ice until one last check arrived.

It’s a macabre tale, to be sure, but it’s also documented. Scores of cancer patients were swindled and their lives were shortened through trickery, and Baker, the millionaire pseudo-doctor, was fined $4,000 and imprisoned for his crimes—for four years.

It’s a terrible thing, how some can take a pure good and twist it. Eureka Springs was visited long before European settlement by people looking for real healing. Some say there’s a powerful energy vortex here, and it makes sense, if you believe that kind of thing—something like sixty-three springs in the city limits, crystal-rich mountains all around.

And I’m here. I’m not sick—the body, mind, and spirit keep doing their thing—but sometimes my writing self gets buried; sometimes the ideas roll down like water and I have nothing to catch them with—no vessel, just my hands, shallow as they are.

For me, contemplation and writing are the healing spring. The town of Eureka Springs has several public springs, some passing through stone basins or at the base of rock stairs. Locals have planted gardens and provided benches nearby. Some are quite pretty; one is sheltered by a purple gazebo with twin statues of couchant animals—I’m not sure what, but perhaps lambs?—giving watch.

They’re beautiful, these springs—and I’ve driven by them, glancing their way.

Sometimes that’s my relationship to poetry. There is magic, right there, and I view it through glass, on the move.

But yesterday I stopped to touch it. I stopped at a spring I feel especially drawn to—Sweet Spring, it’s called. Historic photos show it perfectly encircled by stonework, but today it’s a ruin, and it’s better for it. It’s possible to scale down a few rocks and stand in front of the spring, put your hands under the flow—and I did. I let the possibly healing waters move over my fingers, my writing hands, and then I sat in the sun beneath a lilac in bloom and breathed deeply as they dried.

I’m not the first to come here to have something restored. And I came in good faith, like so many before, since before there were records.

I admit I put a kind of trust in this magic—I wanted the cold waters to wake something in me. The trick, I think, is not to let anyone come between you and the magic—no charlatan touting a cure. If you want to be saved, you have to touch the good earth—let it touch you back. That’s the source. That’s what can make you whole.

It's National Poetry Month! A Writer's Spirit Prompt #1

It’s April—National Poetry Month—and I know a lot of poets who mark the occasion with real gusto. 

What I like about this month is how it is so enthusiastically embraced by poets. There’s always a lot going on in April, in a period that is already marked by discontent and resistance.

A lot of causes have their own months, and few are embraced as enthusiastically as ours. It makes me feel a little bad for those others. Here’s a thought: What if we all got together and made one joint celebration out of our April awarenesses? We could stand arm-in-arm to mark National/International Canine Fitness Internship-Awareness Guitar Garden Humor Couple-Appreciation Inventor’s Jazz-Appreciation Soft-Pretzel Soy-Foods Straw-Hat Pecan Welding Scottish-American Safe-Digging Month. Plus poetry, of course. And because no occasion can be fully solemnized without poetry, someone, somewhere is probably nailing down the scansion on a soft pretzel sonnet or a straw hat sestina.

For poets and lovers of poetry, every month is poetry month.

A lot of journals and organizations offer 30/30 projects during this month, and participants write one poem for each of the thirty days in April. I’m trying a new one myself, actually. It’s called the 30/30 Online Writing Marathon from Kenzie Allen and the other good people at Apiary Lit. In addition to prompts, there are creative supports from the organizers and friendly posts from other writers. I’m impressed with the model (and it’s not too late to join at 3030.apiarylit.org). It seems to respect the individuality of the creative process as it encourages writers to adapt or ignore any instructions that are unsuitable. 

Apiary’s efforts dovetail nicely with my plans for this blog for the month of April. The Internet contains so many poetry prompts that we could attack one a day for the rest of our lives and never risk running out. I find that I need something different than an idea for a poem topic, though. I need prompts that cultivate a writer’s spirit.

I’m busy. I teach and parent and grade and blog and try like hell to write, and in the current national crisis I also engage in activism and work hard to keep up with fast-moving news. I don’t always feel like an artist. 

There aren’t a lot of shortcuts for an effective creative life. Honestly, artists need time, and quiet, and rumination. We need the leisure to make a few false starts and to pursue bunny trails we may need to double back from. I feel too busy for that. I have a sense that my time is too limited not to make a go of a creative start, and I certainly hate to waste a day’s worth of writing.

That’s a lot of pressure—to have only a limited time to write and to need it to come to something. This keeps me from being adventurous sometimes, and it leads to an over-reliance on habit.

Because my blog exists mainly as a means of giving myself a firm talking-to, I offer here my first installment of a daily prompt not for a poem, but for a poetic mindset. I’d love to hear how these work for you as the month progresses, so please consider leaving a comment. Also, to be sure that you never miss a prompt, you please consider subscribing to Better View of the Moon.

A Writer’s Spirit Prompt, 4/1:

In a meditation class recently, I got snagged on the idea of the breath as a tether. As I sat straight and tall and breathed deeply, expanding my abdomen like a bellows and then exhaling to a feeling of emptiness (repeat, repeat), the instructor suggested we regard breath as something to hold onto—as a tether that connects us to earth, to source.

Today, try writing by hand, and striving just to keep the pen or pencil in motion over the page. Your arm, too, is a tether connecting words to source, through the arteries—brachial, ulnar, radial—leading blood to the fingers from your earnest, faithful heart. Try to do justice to the nonstop work of the heart, which is sending poetry to the page. If someone were to put an ear to your sternum, they could hear it: poem, poem, poem.

If you are up to the task, try taking the heart’s transcription. Focus more on process than product. Don’t write a poem; try poeming.