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 #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.

That daily poem is not your symphony

The daily poem is a staple of National Poetry Month. Practically every poet I know is part of an April 30/30 project, cranking out a poem each day, offering and receiving instant feedback, responding to prompts or forging ahead on their own projects.

I often work in projects, and particularly daily projects, throughout the year. It doesn’t have to be April for me to be working on a new poem each day. I have meditation-related projects, where I think intently on a subject and write about it in a discrete poem every day; I also sometimes observe seasons—liturgical, hemispheric … even sports seasons.

It’s a lively way to operate as a writer, and when the theme of the project is constant, it’s one way of going deep the limited time available in a busy life. I like the energy of this kind of challenge, and it’s sort of fun to see the poems pile up. Obviously, some of them are no good, but some have life beyond the challenge, and these seem to make the whole exercise worthwhile.

Recently, though, a mentor said something rather thought-provoking to me. We were enjoying a rare in-person visit, and she pulled me aside to tell me, “You know, I don’t really understand this poem-a-day thing. To what point?”

No one had ever really put that question to me before, and it’s rather substantial one—why do you operate the way you do? And while there was an element of real curiosity in my mentor’s question, the gentle critique was there, too. Is a poem the product of an available hour? Or should poetry do something more substantial?

Most of my favorite poems were the product of longer contemplation. Maybe an exception can be found among the Romantics, who took long walks or did copious amounts of drugs and then wrote like the wind, with a draft in a single sitting (or, in the case of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” a partial draft, lost when that single sitting was interrupted). But then there’s William Wordsworth, rewriting The Prelude his whole life (when he should have quit while he was ahead).

The contemporary lifestyle doesn’t allow for long, focused contemplation. We have work and family—not always the case for writers through the ages—and we have huge houses (and no staff). What we don’t have is quiet—Xbox or the big game in the next room, playdates and ringing phones, projects after the work day, pets.

There have always been distractions. I’m just not sure we’ve ever known our current level of distraction, or that we’ve ever had quite as much vying for our mental energy.

But what if we did devote more focused attention to a single poem, instead of one a day? What if all of April’s writing activity resulted in only one poem—and not even a long poem, but a fine one, the poem that makes all other poems seem a little less necessary?

What if we cultivated a contemplative spirit instead of a quick one? What if we toyed with the idea of a masterpiece, instead of a lot of minor pieces?

I was talking about this today, and a musical analogy occurred to me. These daily poems play an interesting role in the life of a poet. They keep us limber, and they train us to think like a poet does—a little obsessively, prying beneath the surface of things. They hone our skills, much like finger exercises keep a musician limber.

But where’s my symphony? Or where’s my concerto, at least?

Maybe I’m squandering my poetic life on arpeggios. And maybe for me it’s time to think past the daily poem.

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Have you been following my contemplative prompts for National Poetry Month? Visit Better View of the Moon for tips on cultivating a writer's spirit.

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.

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.