If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

  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 in the column on the right

  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

Next Read-Around is 7/20/23 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

My thoughts upon reading Ted Kooser’s A Birthday Poem: Whether or not your birthday happens to fall around this time, give yourself a day grazing, feasting on every green moment, as if you and the day are worthy of celebration. If one day could be enough to fill you, why not call it a birthday? Why not lift your sunlit eyes up from the forest of dreams and fill the bucket of those waiting to be seen? Why not speak their names with such affection it rings the bell of the heart. It could be their birthday, too. It could be the birthday of all things with life spanning dawn to dusk. And even if we cannot negotiate a truce with our unease, we can walk together into the dark, the same way night and day belong to each other. When I read Ted Kooser’s A Birthday Poem, it felt as if today could be that day.

A Birthday Poem

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with his heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come
with his bucket
for the foamy white light,
and then a long day in the pasture.

I too spend my days grazing,
feasting on every green moment
till darkness calls,
and with the others
I walk away into the night,
swinging the little tin bell
of my name.

—Ted Kooser
https://www.tedkooser.net/index.shtml

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem reminiscent of a particular birthday, yours or someone else’s .

  2. Journal or write a poem describing the ideal birthday; or list how the ideal birthday has changed for you over the years.

  3. Describe a sunrise and how it might evoke a certain mood or portend a certain kind of day.

  4. Write whatever comes to mind from the prompt, I spend my days grazing…

  5. Kooser’s poem could be read as a lifetime in one day. Write your own poem of a lifetime in one day, whatever you take that to mean.

  6. Kooser’s poem takes place in a pasture, which supplies the imagery for the day. What landscape would you use for your birthday poem and how would that landscape offer metophors for how the day might go.

  7. Freewrite from the prompt, When darkness calls…

  8. Given the pastoral landscape, the little tin bell swinging reminded me of cows coming back. What animal would you imagine your birthday self to be?

  9. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.