Writing From the Inside Out 2023 Week 39 Prompts
based on my poem, One Day Grazing
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:
Next Read-Around is 9/28/23 at 5:00 PM PST
How It Works:
Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts below
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
My Thoughts
At the last read-around, a few people mentioned that they had birthdays coming up and I shared the poem, One Day Grazing, that I wrote in reply to Ted Kooser’s A Birthday Poem, which served as the prompt for Writing From The Inside Out 2023 Week 29. The rich imagery and beautiful lines of Kooser’s poem inspired me and I stole the phrase “grazing, feasting on every green moment,” directly from his poem. Any birthday is really just another day on the calendar made special by marking it out. In many ways, we do not think of ourselves as notching up another number in our chronology until we pass that yearly birthday marker. Early on, eager to be older, many of us claimed every birthday, announced our age with pride. But somewhere in the tidal turn from youth to “middle age,” we lose our pride, resort to lies, or simply hide the number. It is a funny game we play—this dance with aging grace. Our hearts still young, our eyes still bright. Inside we still feel twenty. But our bodies droop and our bellies bloat and we cross the line of youth and beauty. It’s no surprise there is a rise in Alzheimers, not just from our biology, but also from the collective belief that aging is a burden we wish to forget. So why not change our view of birthdays. Any day we feel alive is a day to celebrate. On such a day, in some small way, we are born again. And we could honestly say, I’ve been born again thousands of times and thousands more I pray.
One Day Grazing
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 your heart, 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,
as it is the birthday of all things
with life spanning dawn to dusk.
And even if we cannot negotiate
a truce with our unease in life,
we can walk together into the dark
the same way night and day
belong to each other.
—Nick LeForce
Prompt Ideas
Journal or write a birthday poem (to yourself or someone specific). Or write generally “to anyone having a birthday today.”
Journal or write a poem about your relationships with birthdays and how it has changed over the years.
Open your writing with the prompt, On a day grazing, I….
Journal or write a poem about feasting on every green moment…
Describe a time when you felt alive or felt as if you were “born again” or made new in some way.
The second stanza says, if one day could be enough to fill your heart, why not callit a birthday? What criteria, other than the day on the calendar, would you use to call a day a birthday?
Journal or write a poem about the way in which you or others might be “waiting to be seen.”
What rings the bell of your heart? Describe how someone has, or might, speak to you in a way that rings the bell of your heart.
Journal or write a poem ablout how you try to “negotiate a truce with your unease.” With what unease in your life would you like to negotiate a truce?
As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.