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

A Shot Of The Unwritten

This is not yet a poem,
not unless you
inject the unwritten. 

Most of the words 
on the page loiter, 
like a pack of restless hyenas 
hanging out on the edge, 
plotting some wild abandon.  

No bird flies in the gray sky.  
No leaf wobbles in unseen winds. 

The air itself holds its breath, 
a champagne cork about to pop 
in the all-quiet eeriness, 
the distilled spirit 
still trapped inside, 
waiting to intoxicate. 

Waiting for the pop 
in the ear that hears 
the unspoken. 
Waiting for the skyrocket 
in the eyes that read 
the unwritten. 

Waiting for a shot
of wild abandon
to run off the page
injected into your 
restless veins.

--© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved

Please join Writing From The Inside Out by attending the read-around sessions on Friday afternoons. It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional. If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Note: Next Read Around is:
February 5, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

To me, all poems are unfinished, completed only in the ears or eyes, or better still, the heart, of a recipient. I may do my part in the writing of it, pleased with its expression on page or stage, but, at best, I am merely  fulfilling its half life. What is then digitized in words, written or spoken, is a stagnant rock pool waiting for the tidal presence of another to stir it into life. Even when I write purely for myself, which is most often the case, there is still a need for it to land in me, to shape or change me at different times in different ways. And I have found that these poems generally land more deeply and more profoundly in me when I share them with others.

I sometimes write poems with a specific person in mind. But more often, I write to a general audience, a particular group of which I am member and which I vaguely characterize as those committed to personal transformation. It includes both those on a healing journey, who are motivated to move away from pain, and those on a journey of conscious evolution, who are motivated to move toward expanded personal power and presence. They both share the same larger goal of those seeking wholeness.

This idea that we are completed in others may apply in our lives in general because so much of our expression or our acts in the world depend on others or are performed for others. On a higher level, some psychologists claim there is a strong need in us as humans to be “seen,” and to be validated, in order for us to be whole. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in love. The Beloved fills in the unwritten in us or in our lives. And who would not want to feel a wild abandon, at least on occasion, in love.

Prompt Menu

  1. How do you know when a poem (or creative expression) is finished? Write about the inner sense or outer conditions that allow you to feel like it is done and what shifts or changes in you at that point. Or go to the bigger issue: what allows you to, or what do you imagine would allow you to, feel whole or complete at this point in your life?

  2. What are the upsides and downsides of being complete, and especially of having another person complete you?

  3. Who is your general audience as a writer, storyteller, or communicator? Consider a representative of that audience (perhaps an iconic or archetypal version; or an avatar for the audience) and write a poem about that person or directed to the person. You can use the stem: To you, who… (or …to you, who is…).

  4. What impact do you hope your writing will have (in general) on others? If you crafted the perfect poem, and it had the perfect impact on the world, what would it change in others or in the world? (My poem suggests the desired impact is “to intoxicate,” or to permit an experience of “wild abandon” in some way in life. How would poetic intoxication change a person or change the world? You could borrow that idea as the prompt).

  5. If you write mainly to yourself, what do you hope your writing will do for you? If you could put that impact in a single word or phrase (to heal, to free myself, to learn and grow, etc.) , what would that be? Write about that impact.

  6. Think of an experience where you felt “seen” or validated for who you are and write about that experience. Or, conversely, think of a time when you were able to truly “see” and validate another person.

  7. Reread the poem (or choose a poem that pleases you) and notice what “pops” for you or what “skyrockets” in you as you read it; then write the unwritten lines that come to mind. They need not be related to the poem at all; just go wherever the sound, sensation, feeling, or imagery takes you.

  8. Or write from any other thing or anywhere else in life that inspires you.