The moderator for this week is Abby!
Abigail Licad is an immigrant from the Philippines, a former editor in chief for Hyphen magazine, a full-on feminist, a Tori Amos diehard fan, a mediocre classical pianist, a dog mama, a chocolate fiend, a terrible cook, a succulent addict, a lover of sending care packages, and a poetry junkie through and through. She has no tattoos, and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 "Effort at Speech Between Two People" by Muriel Rukeyser
Carl Phillips reads "Effort at Speech Between Two People"
Prompts:
1. Write a poem incorporating or responding to any of the following passages:
“Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?”
“I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems”
“I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,/and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.”
2. Write your own poem that is also an effort at speech between two people. You can follow the Rukeyser's example and intersperse descriptive memories and images with declarative sentences ("I am unhappy. I am lonely."), imperatives ("Speak to me.") and direct questions ("What are you now?").
3. Write a biographical poem using 3 (or more) key formative memories. Start with the most recent memory, going backwards chronologically and ending with an early childhood memory.
Thursday, August 18th, 2022
"The Dance" by C.K. Williams as read by the poet.
Prompts:
1. Write a poem incorporating or responding to any of the following passages:
"such restrained/but confident ardor"
"something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, some/sad conjecture, seems to be allayed"
"that world beyond us which so often disappoints but which/sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are."
2. Williams' poem seems to suggest that people come or seem most alive when they are dancing. Write a one-sentence poem about a memory of someone dancing, whether a beloved someone (or couple) you know, a famous person or entertainer, or a random stranger (such as a child) on the street.
3. Think about your daily routine, and note when you usually feel most alive during the day. Write a revelatory poem describing a moment in your day when you usually experience heightened feeling. This can be a mundane, often unnoticed everyday moment like in the poem, or you can describe a more dramatic, anticipated, regular occurrence. What exactly are you doing in that moment, what sensation/s and realization/s follow, and what might these say in general about the world we live in?
Friday, August 19th, 2022
Carl Dennis "The God Who Loves You" by Carl Dennis
1. Write a poem incorporating or responding to any of the following passages:
"It must be troubling for the god who loves you/ To ponder how much happier you’d be today/ Had you been able to glimpse your many futures."
"No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend"
"[W]rite him about the life you can talk about/With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed"
2. Explore 2-3 major decisions or key chance occurrences in your life. Consider other turns your life could have taken and describe these alternate outcomes. Then think about where you are in life now, and end your poem with an expression of gratitude and at least one reason for it.
3. Write a poem listing the kinds of things a loving god worries over when it comes to you. What particular quirks, weaknesses, or habits of yours might trigger chronic worry in a loving god? Or, describe your idea of the divine, perhaps including anthropomorphic qualities your divine displays.
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