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

Lines for Winter

--for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

—Mark Strand
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50977/lines-for-winter

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through the end of December. Next Read-Around is
Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Sometimes, lingering inside the warm sheets on a chilly morning when I would rather dream on than rise up, I give myself a pep talk, speaking, as Mark Strand does in his poem, Lines For Winter, like an outsider who believes more deeply in me than I do myself. Behavioral scientists have found that our inward pep talks are much more effective if we use the second person pronoun you. Strand has captured the central message, “you will go on,” which is embedded in all our pep-talk no matter what form it may take. Winter, even with its stark beauty, is iconic for the weathering of difficulties, for the gift of resilience and the endurance of discomfort.

So much depends on what we tell ourselves in times of trouble, how we describe it when we talk about it to others, and the vision we hold of ourselves trooping on, singing our battle songs and practicing our victory dance in advance. Sometimes when the end zone seems a far horizon, we need to focus on forward progress, however minimal, like the short trip from bed to bathroom when sciatica screams down a leg; when “You can do it!” trumpets from the heart of courage, even if means crawling on all fours, like a wounded animal, telling yourself to go on loving what you are.

Prompt Menu

1. Write about anything in the poem or life that inspires you.