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

Retreat

Before she can deliver
the cruncher,
I stride away backwards.

My car door opens,
I fall in
as the engine fires.

I speed home in reverse,
unshave, unshower,
plop down in my easy chair

where, picturing what a good
night it’s going to be,
I slowly spit up

a Manhattan-dry-
just the way
I like it.

—Charles Harper Webb
https://charlesharperwebb.com

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:

Next Read Around is May 15, 2022

My Thoughts

We’ve all had tiny traumas we re-run over and over in our minds:  the stupid comment, the embarrassing act, the rejected request; or times when things went sour, when our hopes were dashed, or when we were blindsided or betrayed in life. Although we tend to think of trauma in the extreme, we can be “traumatized“ by small events in life as well. The Latin/Greek origin for the word means “wound, hurt, or defeat.” Any hurt that we gruel over in our minds and repeat, that locks us into a painful moment, is a kind of trauma. Charles Webb’s poem, Retreat, has the beginnings of an actual technique found to alleviate trauma (there is alot more to it). Rather than running the event forward, run it backwards. Webb’s wonderfully vivid poem uses descriptors to create a movie in the reader’s mind in reverse—the car door opens on its own, he falls in, he unshaves and unshowers. He arrives back in time at a pleasant moment and leaves the reader there. We have all had a fair share of tiny traumas that we replay in our minds letting them take up too internal real estate. Webb’s rewind misses one key element in healing trauma: deriving positive meaning from the experience. Here is a link to an article about writing to heal trauma: https://www.apa.org/monitor/jun02/writing

Prompt Menu

  1. Journal or write a poem that describes an event in reverse. It could be any event, including something that was “traumatic.” Notice the lingistic tools Webb uses in his poem to achieve the effect.

  2. Consider a time when someone delivered to you a “cruncher” (whatever that might mean in your mind). Journal or write a poem about it, how it impacted you, and how you released it or what you did about it.

  3. As Webb describes the events in reverse, the causal agency of the narrator is absent in some instances (the car door opens, he falls in). Journal or write a poem that contrasts passive and active voices in lines where possible (the door slammed vs I slammed the door)

  4. Journal or write a poem about a time when you had positive anticipation about an event (as in Webb’s line: picturing what a good night it’s going to be), and how the actual event compared to the fantasy.

  5. Journal or write a poem about a particualr or unique preference you or others in your life have for a food or drink (like Jame’s Bond’s famous vodka martini)

  6. Journal or write a poem about a trauma from which you learned a powerful positive lesson or gained an empowering insight and found a deeper meaning.

  7. As usual, write about whatever else inspires you from the poem or from life.