![]() ![]() He was your favorite goat and would lean against you when you walked in the pasture repairing the fence. The last item in the list is (spoiler alert):Ī pound of red goat burger thawing on the cutting board in the kitchen it makes you remember the nimble, sweet-faced two-year-old you had named Felix, whom you had butchered. This piece becomes increasingly personal as the list continues, and while the list describes visually ugly/beautiful things, it also describes things that are beautiful in a larger sense: birth, life, even death. For example, the first item in the list is: “A river in winter with ice floes jammed violently against one another you can see dark water in between the white and grey floes, sparkling in the sunshine.” In this sentence, there are “troubling” connotations in “jammed violently,” but then there are pleasing connotations in “sparkling in the sunshine.”Īnother item later on in the list reads: “The green and blue and red guts of a chicken as you pull them out, like steaming ribbons, on a fall afternoon when you are processing your flock.” One would likely expect chicken guts to be…kind of gross, but the writer uses a surprising description that reveals her perception of the image, as one of beauty. The writer’s clever choice of titles creates an inherent contrast between ugliness and beauty, inviting tension into the piece. In a 2011 issue of Brevity, there appears a very short non-fiction essay by Gretchen Legler, titled “Things That Appear Ugly Or Troubling But Upon Closer Inspection Are Beautiful.” What follows is a list of images from the farm where the writer lives. Try to write 20 lines.įor this exercise, you’ll write a piece of non-fiction in an experimental format: as a list. Using one of the fears you wrote down earlier, cast a protective spell from one of your morning rituals, real or imagined. Write a poem that focuses on the morning in your house, that includes the outside world in some way. What does the speaker tell us about dogs? What do dogs mean for the speaker of the poem? What role does the natural world have in this poem? What does the speaker fear in this poem? What does he cherish? How would you describe the world outside the speaker’s house? Luther Hughes' poem “Stay Safe,” describes the considerable fear the speaker feels as his lover leaves the sanctuary of their home to enter a dangerous world, one the speaker feels could target his lover: “some wrong citizen will mistake him for a scar on the neighborhood-/ they will take him from me.” In an attempt to stay the threat outside, he settles for what he can do, and crafts a “a covering spell: Stay safe.”Ī few questions to consider, on your own in writing, or in discussion with others: What sounds can you hear? What does it smell like? Is it hot or cold, damp or dry, dim or bright? Follow wherever your mind leads.ĭescribe your home in the morning. ![]() ![]() Work to get all of your thoughts on the page, without worrying about what you are writing, or how. Try to write for the whole time, without stopping, in prose (in sentences/paragraphs, without line breaks). Write for roughly 2 minutes in response to the following questions. Time yourself as you write in some way (with a timer, the length of a song, or the length of a page). For the first part, at least, write by hand. You will need something to write on and a writing instrument. I cannot wait to read what you Write Here. Give yourself an hour once a week, with me at the library, or in your home, or maybe on lunch breaks (my friend Stacy is writing her memoir during her breaks, twenty minutes at a time, on her phone!) The intention is to be a trigger, to open a door into a memory or an idea, to allow you time with your craft and yourself to explore a deeper connection with this amazing place where we live, with yourself, and ultimately the community at large. Each prompt, which can be answered in any genre, even art (photos, drawings) will ask you to engage in an idea or image or with a word-it will also be locations specific, something that comes from our area, or is inspired by our surroundings. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |