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

The Window 

A storm blew in last night and knocked out 
the electricity. When I looked 
through the window, the trees were translucent. 
Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm 
lay over the countryside. 
I knew better. But at that moment 
I felt I’d never in my life made any 
false promises, nor committed 
so much is one indecent act. My thoughts 
were virtuous. Later on that morning, 
of course, electricity was restored. 
The sun moved from behind the clouds,
melting the hoarfrost. 
And things stood as they had before.

—Raymond Carver, author and poet, lived for a time here in Sacramento in the 1960’s where he audited classes at CSU, Sacramento.

Note: Next Read Around is:
February 26, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Raymond Carver’s poem, The Window, describes the poet’s experience of a calmness and a renewed sense of innocence emerging out of a disruptive storm and power outage. There is an undeniable beauty in freshly fallen snow, blanketing the world in white, layering rime on winter barren branches, even as the cold freezes water pipes and kills the elderly and unfortunate. It is a blessed moment when, whether by storm or other happy accident, we let go our troubled histories and breathe with our whole body.

Such a moment can be transformative. Carver describes how the moment passed and the world then stood as it did before. That ending could mean that nothing changed; perhaps not even the poet, whose moment of powerless witness temporarily lifted him out of his own life into a state of redemption. He could have shrugged it off and returned to business as usual. But, instead, he captured this visitation of grace in a poem offering hope that we too might find a moment of beautiful clarity in the midst of trying and tragic times.

Prompt Menu

1. Pick a window in your home, or elsewhere, and describe the view out the window. Carver describes the “calm” that laid over the countryside when the power was out during the storm. What ambience or atmossphere does the view out the window you choose invite?

2. The narrator in the poem describes how he was cleansed mentally or emotionally. Describe a similar expereince from your own life—a time when you felt released or unburdened in some way or a time when you felt as if you were cleansed internally.

3. Consider a time when you found some moment of clarity in a storm in life. It could be an acutal storm or metaphorical storm when your life was disrupted. What insight did you gain or what state of grace did it offer.

4. Describe a time when your "power” was knocked out by life. What happened? What restored it?

5. Write a poem about what has or would happen if something cleansed you of any “false promises” or “indecent acts.” One way to proceed is to use the stem sentence: When all the stains were cleansed from me (from my spirit, or my soul, or my heart —whatever fits for you) …

6. If the world were to listen to you, what virtuous thoughts would you share? Consider writing this as a list poem.

7. Carver’s poem challenges us to consider how trying times might change us and warns us about how we might easily dismiss the change and go back to life as it was. Here we are in the midst of a pandemic, which has massivley impacted all of us. What insights and lessons from the pandemic are you prepared to live into the future, even after the pandemic is over? How can you increase the likelihood that you will carry these lessons on or live differently in the future?

8. As always, you can write from something else that inspires you in the poem or from anywhere else in life.