Poetry Prompt #41 - A Fly on the Wall

The subject of flies in poetry may not be common, but I'm sure you're familiar with Emily Dickinson's famous poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz." (Click Here to Read)

This week we're going to work with a "fly idea," but our treatment will be different from Emily D's. We've all heard the expression "fly on the wall." The meaning of the phrase suggests the ability to observe a situation without being seen or heard.

This isn't a new prompt idea, but it's one with lots of possibilities, and the challenge this week is to take yourself – in the form of a fly – into an unusual or emotionally charged place to tell what you see and hear. The idea is to become virtually invisible but nonetheless present.

1. You may "become" the fly and speak from the fly's point of view (persona/personification).

2. You may go back in time to observe yourself in a particular situation from your past.

3. You may eavesdrop on a conversation you were never intended to hear.

4. You may be anywhere, at any time, observing people and listening to what they say.

5. Your tone may be serious, humorous, or ironic.

To begin, imagine yourself as a fly on a wall. Where are you? What do you see? Who is there with you? What do you hear? What insights into a situation do you have from your unseen/unnoticed perspective? What can you (the fly) explain about human behavior in the situation you observe? Is there a situation in which you (the fly) can offer insights into your own actions or personality? What do you learn when you (the fly) observes you (the person)? How may the fly become a metaphor?

Some places to consider for your wall: a cocktail party, a wedding, a masked ball, a birthday party from your childhood, the midst of an argument, a classroom, a divorce court, a funeral parlor, a room in an altered dimension, an empty house, a cruise ship, a bar or pub, a tent deep in a forest. 

Poetry Prompt #40 - A Letter to Myself

How often do we write letters these days? That is, real letters, not emails? Can a letter become a poem?

For this prompt, let's experiment with writing a poem/letter. The form will be similar to that of a letter.  The body of the work may be stichic (one long stanza) or may be composed of several stanzas. Alternatively, you might write yourself a memo, or you might write a letter to someone else (see Renee Ashley's example below).

Letter Poem Example: "For Brigit in Illinois" by Renee Ashley

Memo Poem Example: "How to Be Happy: Another Memo to Myself" By Stephen Dunn

What things might you say in a letter or memo to yourself? 

What's uppermost or most hidden in your mind?

What things have happened to you that you've thought, but never written, about? 

Some things to consider:

Confront yourself. 

Confront something that troubles you. 

Confront your feelings about a relationship. 

Congratulate, comfort, forgive yourself. 

Focus on the present or perhaps on a challenging time in your life.
Write from the perspective of your childhood, or write from the future (looking back at yourself as you are now).  

Poetry Prompt #39 – Overheard Words

Have you ever stood in line at a supermarket or department store and heard bits of conversation around you? Have you ever been in a library, museum, or art gallery where fragments of hushed dialogue reached across the silence to you? "Talk" is all around us: a sentence or phrase in a stairwell, a muted voice in another room, words echoed from the far end of a hallway. Restaurants, malls, train stations, airports are all filled with words, and some of them may be used to prompt our poems this week.

1. To begin, be aware of voices around you, especially when you're in public places.

2. Jot down a few things that you hear people say. 

3. When you're ready to write, look at your notes and focus on a snippet of dialogue (sentence, phrase) that you've heard, and use it as the opening thought of a poem (an epigraph or the first line).

4. Think in terms of what the overheard words suggest to you, where they take you. Move beyond the words' literal meaning and look for the unspoken words they suggest. Don't just tell the story of where you were and what you heard. Create layers of meaning.

Poetry Prompt #38 - Clichéd Phrases

There's an old joke about a man who walks out of a theater after seeing Hamlet and says, "I don't know why everyone thinks Hamlet is such a well-written play, it's full of clichés." Of course, phrases from Hamlet such as "in my heart of hearts," in my mind's eye," and "there's the rub" weren't clichés when Shakespeare wrote them. They've become clichés because they've been quoted so extensively.

Webster's defines cliché as "a trite expression or idea" (and trite is defined as "hackneyed or boring from much use; not fresh or original"). In everyday speech, clichés become a kind of verbal shorthand. Clichés, however, require little thought and rarely evoke thought or emotion when they appear in poetry. Readers don't come to poetry looking for what they already know or have heard before. They want fresh content, distinctive perspectives, acute angles – freshness and originality.

Clichés are the worry stone of language: they may have begun sharp and well-defined but have been rubbed smooth by repeated "handling." They are generic, not specific, and poetry requires specifics. 

Clichés often masquerade as similes ("dark as night," "tears like rain," "like a bat out of hell," "pale as a ghost," "fast as lightning"). They may refer to ideas ("a fluffy kitten," "a pounding heart," "sweaty palms"), and some topics invite clichés (i.e., love poems). The caveat is to avoid clichés "like the plague."

For this prompt, we're going to work with clichéd phrases for the purpose of becoming more aware of them in our writing. Click List for a list of  clichés, and click Categories for a list of clichés by category.

Here are some starters:

1. Make a list of of several clichés and then write a poem around them. You might make this a funny poem in which you accent the obvious.

2. Choose a cliché that really annoys or amuses you, and write a poem about it.

3. Choose a cliché to describe a relationship you've had, and use it as the basis for a poem. 

4. Choose a well-worn cliché and re-invent it to create a new meaning; use the new meaning you've created in a poem.

5. Write a poem entirely from clichés.  
Example: 


He Was Just Another Cliché

To this day, I know that time

heals all wounds (all in due

time) but, needless to say, I

was having the time of my life

when the unexpected happened.

His silence was deafening, so I told

him to cut to the chase. I was scared

out of my mind. The moment lasted

an eternity – it seemed to take

forever – so long that I lost track

of time; I stopped in my tracks.

The long and short of it is this: he

left me faster than greased lightning.

My bubble burst. All that glitters

is not gold, and love is blind.

Poetry Prompt #37 – Poems for the New Year

For last year's words belong to last year's language.

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

(T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding”)

Poems for the New Year Article

"A Song for New Year's Eve" by William Cullen Bryant

"The Passing of the Year" by Robert Service

"At Entering the New Year" by Thomas Hardy

"The Old Year" by John Clare

"In the Year That's Come and Gone" by William Ernest Henley

It is believed that New Year celebrations were first observed by the Babylonians about 4000 years ago on March 23 – a time when they paid off debts, returned borrowed goods, and made resolutions for the coming year. Their practices carried over into Roman times when worshippers offered resolutions to the deity Janus (the god of beginnings and endings whose double face looked at the year behind as well as at the year ahead). When the Roman calendar was changed, the first month of the year was called "January" in honor of Janus, and January 1 became the first day of the new year. Early Christians believed that the first day of the new year should be spent reflecting on past mistakes and making resolutions to be better during the coming year. Ah, resolutions ...

Yes, I'm sure my "pre-ramble" has led you to guess that this prompt will deal with resolutions and new beginnings. Some suggestions follow.

1.  Write a poem about your resolutions for this New Year.

2. Write a poem about a resolution you tried to keep but couldn’t.

3. Write a poem about the resolution(s) you’d never make. (You might try a list poem, or you might focus on a single resolution.)

4. Write a poem filled with funny resolutions.

5. Write a poem about resolutions you’d like a friend, family member, or lover to make in regard to his or her relationship with you.

6. Write a poem about a “new beginning” that you’d like to make this year?

7. Write a poem based on the T. S. Eliot quotation above (you may want to use the quote as an epigraph).

My very best wishes to all for a New Year 

filled with abundances of good health, happiness, 

and all the beauty of poetry!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!

My sincerest best wishes to all of you during this season of light, love, and peace!

Please visit  Poets.org Christmas Article & Poems 

for an excellent article on Christmas poems.

Also on this site are Christmas poems 

that you can access by clicking on the titles in the left sidebar.

 Click here to read "A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior" by Ben Jonson.

Click to hear T. S. Eliot read "Journey of the Magi."

And here's T. S. Eliot's brilliant but little-known poem 

"The Cultivation of Christmas Trees."

The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

By T. S. Eliot

There are several attitudes towards Christmas,

Some of which we may disregard:

The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,

The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),

And the childish -- which is not that of the child

For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel

Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree

Is not only a decoration, but an angel.

The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:

Let him continue in the spirit of wonder

At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;

So that the glittering rapture, the amazement

Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,

So that the surprises, delight in new possessions

(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),

The expectation of the goose or turkey

And the expected awe on its appearance,

So that the reverence and the gaiety

May not be forgotten in later experience,

In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,

The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,

Or in the piety of the convert

Which may be tainted with a self-conceit

Displeasing to God and disrespectful to the children

(And here I remember also with gratitude

St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):

So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas

(By 'eightieth' meaning whichever is the last)

The accumulated memories of annual emotion

May be concentrated into a great joy

Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion

When fear came upon every soul:

Because the beginning shall remind us of the end

And the first coming of the second coming.

The next prompt will be posted on January 1, 2011.

In the meantime, I wish you joy!

Poetry Prompt #36 – A Letter to Santa

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the famous "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus" letter written in 1897 in reply to eight year-old Virginia O'Hanlon's query about whether or not Santa Claus is real (Yes, Virginia - Letter and Reply). I recently read the letter again and thought it might be fun to write letters to Santa this week.

For this prompt, traditional letter format is fine (prose poem style), but you may wish to refine into stanzas once your ideas and images are in place. There are many possibilities: your slant may be serious, humorous, or even satirical (just be wary of seasonal clichés and sentimentalizations). 

Here are a few ideas:

1. Start with a simple "Dear Santa" and write your letter.

2. Typically, a letter to Santa is filled with requests for tangibles, but you may want to ask for things like love, peace, friendship, or forgiveness. You may want to write about a single gift you'd like ("All I Want for Christmas Is __________").

3. Write a letter to Santa from a perspective other than your own (a celebrity, a political figure, a sports person, the earth, something from nature, someone no longer living, an animal).

4. Another option is to write a letter from Santa. Just as the Virginia O'Hanlon story involves a letter and a reply, you might want to write a letter to Santa and his reply to you.

5. How have you been "naughty or nice?" Write a letter poem about your own "behavior," a letter to someone who has treated you badly, or a letter to someone who has treated you well. 

6. If writing a letter doesn't appeal to you, you  might consider writing a poem about this section of the reply to Virginia's 1897 letter. How does this passage speak to you?: “Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.”