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

AS A HAMMER SPEAKS TO A NAIL

When all else fails,
fail boldly,
fail with conviction,
as a hammer speaks to a nail,
or a lamp left on in daylight.

Say one.
If two does not follow,
say three, if that fails, say life,
say future.

Lacking future,
try bucket,
lacking iron, try shadow.

If shadow too fails,
if your voice falls and falls and keeps falling,
meets only air and silence,

say one again,
but say it with greater conviction,

as a nail speaks to a picture
as a hammer left on in daylight.”

Jane Hirshfield
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jane-hirshfield

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Next Read Around is February 25, 2022 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

We have scales to measure the weight of things: heft, size, shape, color, texture; ways to measure mass in motion: location, speed, direction, inertia, friction.  Scales that can speak of such things with conviction; that can measure one against another and display which way the matter tilts.

In the poem, As A Hammer Speaks To A Nail, Jane Hirshfield announces, "when all else fails, fail boldly." In that opening line, she is taking failure off the scales we usually use to measure it. The mind will scale failure by the tonnage of dark clouds hanging overhead, by the height of cliffs we must climb with our clipped wings to return to ground zero. HIrschfield is talking about the heart taking matters into its own hands.

There is nothing left of right or wrong without a point of reference. When that is removed from the equation, we brush the dark web from our eyes and often find the cliffs are only curbsides. Then, each step we take is an invitation for the next. If one does not work, we can do a two-step or sidestep, reverse step, pivot turn or leap. We can be like a mother soothing the worried child, singing “Que Será, Será.” We can switch from ballroom to nightclub, from waltz to a rocket breaking free from the atmosphere of our own miasma. Or we can simply stop counting on things to work out a certain way and go back to one.

Prompt Menu

  1. Use Hershfield opening phrase as your stem sentence prompt: when all else fails… Then journal or write whatever follows for you.

  2. Journal or write a poem about a time when you or someone failed boldly. Or use any other adjective that puts a different spin on failing: fail beautifully, graciously magnificently, exquisitely, peacefully.

  3. Write an ode got failure. You can use the stem, to fail…

  4. How would a hammer speak to a nail? What would it say with conviction? What does a lamp left on in the day say with conviction?

  5. What words would you offer when you’re counting on things to work out a certain way and they fail to do so?

  6. Take the combination of words Hirshfield advises us to say When things fail to work— life, future, bucket, iron, shadow— and use them as your prompt.

  7. Hirshfield suggests that we count on one thing following after another: one leads to two and then three, etc. When things fail to do so, we can always go back to one--back to a starting point. What are your back to one’s (something basic you can return to) when things go awry in your life.?

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