If you wish to attend the April 2020 Friday read around (It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional) 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.      Review the selection of prompts beside the poem
5.      Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems or reflections using different prompts) or…
6.      Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Prompt Options for Week 1 
based on Cutting Loose by William Stafford 
(use any one or more that inspires you)

1.      Write about a sorrow in your life either as a lament over it or a blessing from it; as a stretch, write it as a song

2.      Although we are sequestered in our homes and unable to travel freely in the world, we may, by default, be given a chance to “elect a world where you go where you want to” in your mind. Follow that thread to a world where you go where you want to…and write about it.

3.      Free write from the stem sentence: “When I accept the way of being lost, I…” Or write about a time you were glad to be lost.

4.      Describe a sound or image or feeling that calls you back to center…

5.      Stafford uses a metaphoric movement to get beyond a challenge: “slide your way past trouble.” Personify trouble and write about different ways of relating to “trouble” (face, avoid, embrace, etc. or metaphoric: slide around it; unmask it, etc).

6.      Describe how the “twisted monsters” in your life (in the past or present) got you going your best and how that changed you

7.      Free write from the stem sentence: I learned how real it is here on the earth when…

8.      Of course you can use anything else that inspires you to write. 

Cutting Loose by William Stafford 

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, 
you sing. For no reason, you accept 
the way of being lost, cutting loose from 
all else and electing a world 
where you go where you want to. 

 Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder 
that a steady center is holding 
all else. If you listen, that sound 
will tell you where it is, and you 
can slide your way past trouble. 

Certain twisted monsters 
always bar the path—but that’s when 
you get going best, glad to be 
lost, learning how real it is 
here on earth, again and again.

If you wish to attend the Friday read around, Register Here