1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Making a Fist

 We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men. —Jorge Luis Borges

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

“How do you know if you are going to die?”
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
“When you can no longer make a fist.”

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54308/making-a-fist

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Note: Next Read Around is:
Oct 15, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

I’ve often thought about the strange way our memory works: how we remember some particular thing from childhood over so many other experiences; or how a certain moment stands out, takes on an elevated significance, and becomes a kind of life lesson. In Naomi Shahib Nye’s poem, Making A Fist, a mother’s offhand comment to her daughter’s exaggerated concern about dying serves as an example. The mother’s remark was probably not intended to be a life lesson. More likely, it was meant to ease the daughter’s fear by giving her some thing she could do physically as a distraction. It’s also likely that the nugget from that moment was mined only in reflecting on it, writing about it, and crafting it into the poem. Mining the past for its treasures is one of the greatest gifts of writing, particularly for composing poetry or writing a memoir. There’s actually a document in the legal profession called the “Ethical Will.” Most people are aware of a will as a set of instructions about the distribution of one’s assets and heirlooms after passing away. The Ethical Will is a document that describes life experiences and life lessons one wishes to pass on to descendants and loved one’s. It is a legacy of the heart. The document offers great prompts for anyone wanting to write because we all intuitively know that storytelling and poetry are the primary means for passing on a legacy of the heart.

Prompt Menu

  1. Recall and write about a poignant moment from childhood, something that stands out in your memory.

  2. Write about a comment or message you received as a child that stuck with you. Or write about a unique, unusual, or cryptic piece of advice you received or heard at any time in your life.

  3. Describe a moment as a frightened child when a parent or an adult or sibling said or did something that eased your fears or helped to deal with the situation. Or Write a poem about a time as a parent or an adult when you said or did something to ease a child’s fears or concerns.

  4. Describe a moment of sickness as a child, how it impacted you, how you were treated,  or what learned from it. Or describe a  time you used sickness as an excuse to get out of school or avoid responsibilities.

  5. Write about an experience in which you thought you were dying or it felt like you were dying (physically, mentally/emotionally, or spiritually). 

  6. Write about a road trip or journey that you took as a child that stands out in your memory. Is there some part of you that still lives in that moment l(like Nye’s comment about still lying in the backseat of the car).

  7. Consider the line about the borders we must cross separately from our family, our loved ones, etc. Write a poem about crossing a border and how it impacted you and your relationships. 

  8. As usual, write about anything else from the poem or life that inspires you