M Christine Delea's Blog, page 37

I Don't Mean to Brag, But . . . : Writing Prompt

Trying to discern whether or not someone is a narcissist has become a favorite preoccupation for many Americans since 2018 (or thereabout), but for many psychologists, narcissism is a job. If you would like to read a short academic paper on the subject, click here.

(No worries, though--reading that paper is not required for this writing prompt.)

For most of us non-narcissists, we want to sound self-confident without being self-centered. We don't want to put people off by saying something we f...

Greta by Marjorie Power

Greta

by Marjorie Power

—after hearing Greta Thunberg’s speech at the U.N., 9/23/19

She’s a lungful

of cold clean air

in a foul-smelling wind,

the great-great-great-great-

granddaughter spirit of a healing witch,

the voice of one

crying in our plastic wilderness.

A little child shall lead them.

They won’t burn her at the stake.

The foul wind works

fast, and will suffice.

She’s the last word.

Our gabble...

True Love: Writing Prompt

This week's writing prompt is in two stages, and you need to promise (promise!) that you will complete Part I before looking ahead to what is required in Part II.

Promise?

Okay, let's go with Part I.

Answer these questions by writing down your answers (or typing, voice note, etc.). Don't think about these too much--just answer. And you can always make up your answers (unless you are writing nonfiction!).

What is your favorite color?

What is something you did when young that you are now emba...

True Love by Robert Penn Warren

True Love

by Robert Penn Warren

In silence the heart raves.It utters words

Meaningless, that never had

A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,

Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat

In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like

Beauty. It stops your heart. It

Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath.

I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.

I thought I wo...

Quarantine by Eavan Boland

Quarantine

by Eavan Boland

published in her 2001 book, Code

In the worst hour of the worst season

of the worst year of a whole people

a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.

He was walking—they were both walking—north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.

He lifted her and put her on his back.

He walked like that west and west and north.

Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.

Of cold. Of hunger. ...

Imagine YOUR Neighbor: Writing Prompt

I don't always pull my prompts from the poem I posted, but when I do, it is a fairly blatant prompt.

For this week's writing, imagine your neighbor (so do not choose a neighbor that you know well).

This can be you imagining that person's life/those people's lives, or you can have your neighbors wondering about the speaker of your piece.

A poem of mine, "What the Neighbors Suspect Is True," published in The Pointed Circle way

back in 1998, imagined the speaker as a witch and a seer making al...

Imagining My Neighbor by Loretta Diane Walker

Imagining My Neighbor

by Loretta Diane Walker

published on Poem-a-Day, April 08, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets

Now that night has fallen like a broken cart,he cups his ear against the old red radio, attempting to tune out the streamof unintelligible street verbiage leaking thru the window.

Earlier, he opened all the blinds,

but left the front door closed.Why do we seal off those placesflooding the greater light?

I imagine in the quiet cottage of his brainthe sepia of th...

Sonnet to the Fifty-One Senators Who Voted Against the Women’s Health Protection Act by Joanne Durha

Sonnet to the Fifty-One Senators Who Voted Against the Women’s Health Protection Act

by Joanne Durham published in Plum Tree Tavern, July 2022

I don’t have a personal story to pull at your heartstrings. Neverbled sterile from a coat hanger. Nevercarried a child inside my body minus a mouth or a windpipe, knowing they would die within days strangled on their own breath. Was young and naivebut never paid the price. In America, we electyou for your adorable puppy and three smi...

The Ghazal: Writing Prompt

If you are using this week's prompt to write a prose piece (or create visual art) or form poetry does not excite you at this point in your life, your prompt is to write about a time when the weather changed your life in some way.

For the poets, this week's prompt is to write a ghazal (pronounced as the English word guzzle).

This is a Persian form that consists of couplets (a minimum of 5, and usually no more than 15). That's the easy part!

Each couplet should be a complete thought.

Traditio...

Even the Rain by Agha Shahid Ali

Even the Rain

by Agha Shahid Ali

from his book Call Me Ishmael Tonight (Norton, 2003)

What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?

But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.

“Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?

After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.

Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.For mixe...