The Time Is Now

Journalist Zahra Hankir’s book, Eyeliner: A Cultural History (Penguin Books, 2023), traces the lineage of eye makeup from its ancient Egyptian origins to contemporary times, zigzagging across a wide-ranging swath of globalism, fashion, and celebrity—from Nefertiti to Amy Winehouse—while relating the implications of the cosmetic accessory to themes of feminine performance and Orientalism. Choose an accessory or stylistic embellishment that has played some role in your own life, or perhaps one that is culturally pervasive or resonant. Consider your relationship to this seemingly frivolous item and write a personal essay about its relevance and connection to your identity. How might you connect the dots to larger social issues and historic moments in time?

Twentieth-century artist Isamu Noguchi worked across many disciplines—costume and stage design, landscape architecture, drawing, ceramics, and furniture—and is renowned for his wide-ranging and experimental sculptures. Noguchi was influenced by many subjects from Greek mythology, Biblical figures, ancient architecture and archaeology, natural phenomena, artists and musicians, and animals and plants. One of his sculptures titled “Gregory” is named after the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, who shape-shifts into a giant insect. Browse through Noguchi’s online catalogue raisonné to find a sculpture that catches your eye and write a story inspired by the artwork. Feel free to go beyond a literal interpretation, perhaps using the piece’s title as a launchpad for a surrealist or Kafkaesque tale.

What’s going to be popular in 2024? Trend forecasters are busy making predictions for the fads of the near future, from what we’ll wear to what we’ll eat. The Food Network predicts the rise in popularity of white chocolate, the expansion of boba tea flavors in desserts, and sake becoming the “it” drink, while Food & Wine magazine reports on fashionable food brand-related merch, ruffle-edged Cresto di Gallo as the “pasta shape of the year,” herbal liqueurs, and sweet and sour as the reigning flavor. Write a poem about a past, current, or future food trend. Are you on board or skeptical? Have fun with food vocabulary and play around with sounds and rhythms that match your selection.

In Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel, Leave the World Behind, which was recently adapted into a feature film, two families are stuck in a home in rural Long Island during a sudden and unexplainable time of apocalypse. Amid the chaos caused by large-scale blackouts, technology on the fritz, animals running amok, characters suddenly falling ill, and the possibility of terrorist attacks, the most terrifying thing seems to be the unknowability of what and who might be besieging their lives and the world as they know it. Write an essay about your fears of the unknown. What do you find terrifying and, on the flip side, what provides you a sense of reassurance and comfort? Reflect on the delicate balance of how you navigate the world as you know—and don’t know—it.

In a recent New York Times article, technology reporter Kashmir Hill wrote about spending the month of December on a break from her smartphone by switching to a flip phone. The decision stemmed from the realization of her phone addiction, mindlessly spending hours of screen time on it and checking it over a hundred times a day. With time away from her smartphone, Hill noted improved sleep, better communication with her friends and husband, more books read, more time spent outdoors, less stress, and more enjoyment in the moment. Write a short story in which your characters are affected by their phone usage. How do their habits and addictions reveal truths about their personalities and interactions with other characters? How might you incorporate technology like text messaging, social media, photography, and smartphone apps creatively in your prose or formatting?

Every year, Project Censored, an anti-censorship and media literacy advocacy organization, releases their State of the Free Press yearbook, highlighting the past year’s most significant independent journalism. This year’s book, published in December by Seven Stories Press, emphasizes the dangers of corporate media and the shuttering of community newspapers, which leave many communities without a reliable source of local information. Do some digging online or at a local library for a news story in your city from the past year, perhaps something that didn’t make national news. Write a poem inspired by your experience of zeroing in on the value of something small, ordinary, and regionally specific.

Two iconic personifications of the passage of time frequently appear at the start of a year: Baby New Year, a diapered baby wearing a top hat and sash displaying the upcoming year, and Father Time, an elderly bearded man often accompanied by a scythe and an hourglass. As we’re all pressed to return to work with renewed energy and begin the year with replenished resolve, take some time to reflect on the endings that coincide with these beginnings and write a personal essay on the theme of conclusions and closure. What routines or activities do you turn to that help bring you closure?

Last month, a long-lost art amusement park called Luna Luna was resurrected in Los Angeles, with rides and attractions created and designed by contemporary artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joseph Beuys, Salvador Dalí, Sonia Delaunay, Keith Haring, David Hockney, and Roy Lichtenstein. The interactive artworks were commissioned in the 1980s for an amusement park in Hamburg, Germany but were put away in storage, lost and forgotten for decades. This week write a story in which something that was created for another era suddenly resurfaces and provides whimsical joy to a new audience. How might you mark the passing of time and all that occurred during the years when the item was forgotten and left to languish? Is there a heightened sense of tension and anticipation, and long-awaited appreciation, for the creations?

For the past fifty years, the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in New York City has hosted its annual New Year’s Day Marathon, a day of readings and performances that has grown into a twelve-hour-long event with over a hundred artists and writers given a few minutes on stage. In a Washington Post article about last year’s gathering, poet Jameson Fitzpatrick explained that she was there to “bear witness to poetry’s being alive. Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.” Write a short poem that captures the exuberant potential of verse, one that celebrates its own form and would be exciting to read in front of an audience. Consider how diction, sound, rhythm, and subject matter might collide to create a sensation of language teeming with vitality.

The end of a year is often a time when we take stock of all that’s unfolded in the twelve months that have just passed. Popular top ten lists cover a wide range of experiences—such as the best music albums, books read, meals cooked, restaurant outings, films watched, museum visits, and sporting events—and looking back at photos from the year helps recall favorite moments with friends and loved ones. This week jot down a year-end list, selecting a topic whose items bring you particular joy as you recount what’s made it onto your top five or top ten roundup. Use this list to create a lyric essay loosely chronicling the year through one lens, writing a paragraph for each of your chosen items.