Hello, dear readers and writers.
Although I have recently been sending out newsletters for paid subscribers only, I want to reassure you that I plan to continue to make my prompts accessible for all subscribers occasionally. This week is it, so if you’ve hit a paywall recently, keep reading!
I’m working on revising some of my own writing this week, so I’m not going to include that here this time, but I do have a quote, a poem, and a prompt for you this week.
First, the quote, from Susan Sontag:
Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll soon be incurring narrow your lives. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
The poem below, by Marie Howe, is your prompt this week. I often use a poem as a prompt, because I find the emotional resonance of a poem creates some very interesting writing. And sometimes I remind my workshop participants that a line—or a series of lines—from a poem can work as a writing prompt too. So read the poem below, and write for twenty minutes in response. See what the poem evokes for you.
If you want to explore other poems by Marie Howe, you can find some more here. Any of them could work well as a prompt. A favorite of mine is, “What the Living Do.”
One more thing: my live (and online) weekly workshops begin again in April. If you’re interested in signing up for one, you can see the full schedule here. I’m especially excited about my upcoming Gay Men’s writing Brunch, which still has a few spots open. Let me know if you’re interested in attending any of my workshops at Laguna Writers by sending me an email.
That’s all for now.
The poem (as prompt) is below.
Singularity (after Stephen Hawking)
by Marie Howe
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good*
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
—when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all—nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
*This is a direct reference to a line from Walt Whitman’s, “Song of Myself.”
Thank you it was good to read this. When I’m able to, I will sign up as a paying member.