Something from Before

A poetry mentor I had took the class out of the classroom and walked us around outside, pointing at sculptures, people going by, trees, empty benches -- inviting us to sense deeply into these things, find new truths there, or make up stories, and put what we found into poems. That left an impression on me, and leads me toward prompts that involve a physical doing, an assignment, a mission, so that the poem ripples from things moving both inside and outside the mind. 

This week, find something you wrote before. 

"Find" could mean digging something out of storage, taking something off the bookshelf, or calling a relative to see if they can send it to you.

"Something" could mean a page from an old notebook, a poem you published, part of a letter -- but certainly a sample of creative writing and not, say, an old shopping list.

"Before" could mean a week ago, years past, or circa 1979.


Use that piece of writing as the basis for a new poem. There are many ways to go with this. You could quote yourself whole-cloth and then write "part two." You might interweave old lines with new ones. You might refer to the old writing without quoting it. You could take the seed of the idea for the old piece and use it to grow something brand new without ever looking back. You might write about the self who wrote the past sample....

Knowing us, the new poems are going to be ... beyond words...


LABEL: Before


Related: http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/
Childhood photos are recreated by the adults those children became.