A week’s worth of words
As we shift away from the dreary February weather and into March’s spring renewal, many of us are emerging from a period of fatigue. Because of this, there might be the desire for recentering, or returning to those habits that were lost during the winter months. For this month’s prompt, we’ll be focusing our attention on the idea of endurance, and reworking regularity (back) into our writing practices. As always, prompts are entirely invitation; follow this as closely or as loosely as you’d like.
This prompt guideline will follow a full seven-day structure. If desired, you could shorten it by simply reducing the number of active days you’re participating. I encourage you to aim for a full seven days, though.
To start out your day one, your focus is on word banking. This is where you collect any words that call to you and gather them together for later use. Anything works here: individual words that pop into your head, a sentence you overhear on the bus, a strange name you spot on a nametag. Whatever grabs your attention, jot it down wherever convenient and store it. Ideally, you’ll be grabbing at least one word or phrase per hour. When the day starts to close, you’ll have before you a slew of opportunities for prompting. You might discover some kind of general theme or tone that seems to unify all that you’ve grabbed, intentionally or accidentally.
Make this collection of words into some kind of visual composition. Have fun with it – get loose and creative! Once your composition is complete, this will act as our initial piece of your weekly movement to follow.
The inspiration for this structure comes from local author Amber Flame and the poetic form she coined called a vanguard. In it, the poet creates one short poem that works as an informing lead for three poems to follow. Even if the following poems seem disconnected, they are unified in their relationship to the initial short poem. You can think of your word bank composition as the initial short poem; you’ll be completing six poems to follow it, or two sequences of three.
Each day for the remainder of the week, identify one or two words or phrases from your word bank that really call to you. When identifying these, give yourself plenty of time and space to consider the why. What about this word feels potent, energized? What relations do you have between it and other words, between it and the position you currently find yourself in? If the reason the word calls to you feels like a mystery, lean into that, explore the curiosity. Whatever it means to you to build a connection with that word or phrase, build it. Then you can settle into the creation.
Place your word(s) at the top of your page and compose! Find a flow where you can explore all of the dimensions of the word you discovered before. Complete this process for five more days, each time grabbing onto a new word or phrase, unless a previous idea feels incomplete and you must return to it. I’d recommend exploring a new form with every piece – allow yourself to experiment with the shape of your language.
By the end of the week, you’ll have yourself a sequence of six poems. Keep them connected as a suite, or isolate out your favorites and store them somewhere cozy. You’ll carry with you the success of completing an entirely new body of work in a week! If you’re ever in another writing rut, you can return to this prompt and build up a writer’s endurance. The best thing we can do as writers is continue to practice regularly.