I found out about Luisia Igloria's plethora of writing exercise prompts on my Facebook newsfeed. Like many of you, I signed on to write a poem a day in April for National Poetry Month, so I was delighted when I saw that she was posting prompts as daily status updates. After I wrote a couple of successful drafts based on her exercises, I contacted her and asked if she would be willing to share about her "take" on the usefulness of writing prompts, along with a sample. Lucky for us, she obliged! Here's what she had to say:
Photo Credit: John-Henry Doucette
When I was a child, many of the stories mymother told me at bedtime were made up. Remembering this, I can see how her improvisations were important early lessons for the poet in me. I saw that "being stuck" could be perceived as a temporary condition; that anything on the road to a story (poem) was potential material; how the arrival at a conclusion or an ending did not necessarily mean finality or the last word. There was and could be infinite variation, a long corridor lined with doors to try and open; behind them was not necessarily death or dragons, but I knew that neither would there always be love or gardens.
As a woman, and as a writer of color in the diaspora, this perspective is additionally relevant to me when I consider the ways in which histories are typically written by those who have access to the most power. To improvise—and thereafter to rewrite—is to re-imagine consequence; is to wage/engage in little revolutions, is to overturn the sense of given expectation. This kind of virtuosity and openness to risk can be a source of great creative and political power. More on Luisa on the power of improvisation here.
Exclusive BAP-blog-only Poem Prompt:
Write a poem that uses as its starting point some "enshrined" depiction (as in a museum or art gallery), myth, or widely held view of a specific historical or cultural artifact, narrative, event, group of people, or figure/character.
Dramatically re-imagine/re-cast the original context or the event itself and its outcomes.
Write a title for it that partly summarizes your poem's central engagement, beginning with When... (for example: "When Eve chose to eat a bitter melon instead of the apple" or "When Magellan came ashore and decided to go native" or "When the mail order bride applied for a spot in a Ph.D. program" ).
So, why write a poem a day?
Without initially intending to do so, I have ... become fully engaged in and by the daily practice of writing poems. Not only has “running with my muse” daily made me more limber and given me much valuable biofeedback about my writing; it has also taught me many lessons about fear and anxiety, my habits (both good and bad), the many little (and big) excuses that the self seems to conveniently find when confronted with things it is afraid of and/or that must get done…
Luisa A. Igloria's books include Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (2014 May Swenson Prize), The Saints of Streets (2013), Juan Luna's Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, UND Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), and eight other books. Luisa has degrees from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from 1992-1995. She currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. Since November 20, 2010, she has been writing (at least) a poem a day, archived at Dave Bonta's Via Negativa site. She enjoys cooking with her family, book-binding, and listening to tango music.
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