A prompt I wrote was the foundation for the NaPoWriMo challenge at ReadWritePoem.Org. This is what it said.
Read Write Poem member Julie Jordan Scott launches her NaPoWriMo prompt with a quote from Diane Ackerman: “Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.” Julie reports having discovered in her own notes 17 pages on the subject! Here’s the prompt she culled from material she’s collected:
Practicing the art of writing from the sense of smell will open language in a different way than writing from a more “language friendly” sense, like the sense of sight or sound. Because of this, writing that uses a scent prompt evokes visceral, richly experienced poetry.
Scientific fact: Salmon smell their stream of birth from hundreds of miles away. The scent of this particular stream weaves its way to the salmon like a love-call. It rises and falls with the water, its essence calling the ancient connection. The salmon respond to this invitation and make their way back to their spawning ground.
Humans have primitive connections to the sense of smell, as well. It is our most primal sense, especially since the connections between the language centers and smell sensory centers are so few. Our sense of smell is tied to our most ancient selves. Another intriguing fact? Smell is connected closely to our memory centers even though it is distant from our language centers.
Somewhere near where you are sitting is something with a specific smell that will conjure a memory rich with images. Take a moment to find any such object and breathe the scent of it, deeply. It may be as simple as a strand of your hair, a ketchup bottle from the refrigerator, a potholder or a bottle of lotion.
Add to your breath the simple phrase, “I remember” and breathe the scent in again. “I remember.” Free write from “I remember” for at least five minutes, repeating the prompt “I remember” if your writing slows.
Use the seeds from your free writing to write today’s poem.
And here is my poem – Hartshorn Volatility
The page is my alarm, a call to write.
it bursts through my skin and
]nto my blood – “HEAR ME!” its command
Slightly dense, the shout of it but not
too much to overtake my energy with its
bossy demeanor which will cause me to quit
every time It is the peal of a bell
the page, a peal of laughter
the moment of bliss, finding that word and
allowing that word’s perfume to envelop you
its effluence ~ a poem, a seduction, a mortar
board slightly off kilter and then, you know.
You know what happens.
I read those same words, that same poem,
that same quilt, that same symphony of sound
at Borders later along with “Ode to the Morning
Page Police” – writers like these ditties of self
effacement, gently gracing the pages. Do I? Do I?
I stay silent, I turn my head away from my suitor.
his old book smelled of mentholatum, disinfectant,
hospital wards with the humanity left out. His eyes,
wanting me to be delighted, my mouth, curled up in
a smile attempting to look authentic. Don’t know
if I hit the mark but I tried, oh, how I tried.
This old book, this one – thin pages, description rich
Decades of oil from fingers, turning the pages,
beyond middle age print just slightly decomposing,
giving itself up to the air, the page itself,
yellowing from want and yellowing, like teeth,
large and wanting just one more cup of coffee,
just one more cigarette.
Hartshorn Volatility, gaseous and invisible change
agent. Catalyst, it moves into the nose but irresistably
transcribes sleepy, inconsequential words into thundering
insights in the snap of a finger. What is that about?
No comments:
Post a Comment