Perspective . . . Prompt #658

  • Perspective . . . Prompt #658

    I like the idea of looking at familair things with a new perspective.

    This writing idea is from Kathryn Petruccelli:

    Look at something in your environment, perhaps something you’ve seen many times before, that you think you know well.

    It could be a piece of art hanging in your house, or a plant on your windowsill.

    Get close and look again. Re-see it.

    After you’ve spent some time with it, create a list of metaphors—things it looks like, or reminds you of.

    Don’t be too attached to logic, be free with your associations.

    Maybe the comparisons will get wild as you go along.

    At some point, break the pattern of the list and slow things down by going deeper into description for one metaphor (extend it and explain it in more detail), or by making a statement—a simple subject-verb sentence—that reflects on or summarizes what you’ve said so far.

    Note from Marlene: Use your list as seeds for future writing.

    Join Kathryn Petruccelli for a summer of poking around in poetry.

    Write Spot Blog Posts about similes and metaphors:

    Describe colorful character using similes and metaphors

    Innovative Technique for Creative Writing

    An experience in nature

    Just Write!

    #iamwriting #iamawriter #justwrite #iamapoet

    Marlene C

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  • Gratitude

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Gratitude

    By Kathryn Petruccelli

    Spring in a cold place. Which means everything is so heartbreakingly tender—tulips lifting their dusky prom skirts, dandelions twinkling in their green sky.

    I’ve lived here a little while, this rural New England town, its six months of winter, a place accustomed to waiting for beauty to appear. I’ve left somewhere I loved to move far away in service to a restless heart, the bonus draw of family. In the time since, I’ve witnessed a father-in-law dissolve from brain cancer, a second-born survive the bypass machine, tiny heart sewn back together.

    Walking through the park with the baby, I call a friend back home to catch her up, or to remember who I am, or to plead with her to come visit and if she can’t, at least to understand. The wheels of the stroller make that delicious sound they make as they roll over gravel. Cherry blossoms are open, magnolias, their ancient blush. It’s good to hear her voice—magical, even—then, I falter.

    “What? What is it?” she wants to know.

    “No, nothing,” I say. “I mean, it’s not that bad here,” I try, watching the robins, chests plump as plums at the edge of the lake, side-eyed, cocking their heads askew to see the ground in front of them. 

    Kathryn Petruccelli is obsessed with place, language, and the ocean. Her work has appeared in the Southern Review, Rattle, Poet Lore, Tinderbox, West Trestle, Plant-Human Quarterly, and elsewhere. She teaches online writing workshops from western Massachusetts, from which she also gardens and pines for California’s central coast. More at poetroar.com.

    Published in River Teeth, 2/21/2022

    River Teeth is a biannual journal combining the best of creative nonfiction, including narrative reportage, essays and memoir, with critical essays that examine the emerging genre and that explore the impact of nonfiction narrative on the lives of its writers, subjects, and readers.

    Marlene C

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