The Time Is Now

Last month, the Journal of Great Lakes Research reported findings from a study of goldfish—the common East Asian carp often kept as pets—found in the wild, likely released into local lakes and rivers by their former owners. When removed from constricting fish bowls and flake-based diets, the fish grew to nearly a foot-and-a-half long and were able to reproduce quickly, destroying local marine ecosystems. Write a poem about something in your life that has ballooned out of proportion in an unexpected way. This might be a relationship with someone, an aspect of a job or extracurricular activity, or a household object that has transformed into an increasingly epic collection. Has the growth been slow and gradual or haphazardly speedy? At what point do you think enough is enough?

In his sardonic essay “Santaland Diaries,” a reading of which NPR airs every year as a holiday tradition, David Sedaris tells the story of how he, as a struggling writer, spent a season working as a Christmas elf at Macy’s department store in New York City. In one scene describing the Santaland Maze, Sedaris channels the frustration and dark thoughts many retail workers experience during the holiday season. “I spent a few hours in the Maze with Puff, a young elf from Brooklyn. We were standing near the Lollipop Forest when we realized that Santa is an anagram of Satan. Father Christmas or the Devil—so close but yet so far,” he writes. Dip into the dark side of the holiday spirit and write an essay about a year when you experienced a particularly frustrating holiday season. Consider the feelings of stress and cheer that are often at odds at the end of the year.

Whether full of work mixers, gatherings with relatives, community-centered potlucks, or festivities with friends, this time of year is often busy with social events of all kinds. This week write a short story that revolves around a seasonal get-together. Perhaps there are pressures present associated with themes that surface around the end of the year, such as the winter blues, religion, childhood traditions, and social expectations. Is a spare and stark tone more fitting for your story, or is a maximalist, ornate narration more suitable? Are your fictional party scenes imbued with an atmosphere of joy and cozy lights, or chilly temperatures and disappointed hopes, or both? Have fun adding a dash of humor or menace into your convivial gathering.

“Cold, moist, young phlegmy winter now doth lie / In swaddling clouts, like new-born infancy,” writes Anne Bradstreet in the opening lines of her 1650 poem “Winter.” In her seasonal poem, Bradstreet traverses from the month of December to “cold, frozen January,” and finally to “moist snowy February,” cycling through the movements of the sun, the length of day, and the sensation of warmth or chill on the body. Though we often think of winter as one portion of the year’s seasons, how do the individual months of winter feel to you? Write a poem that tracks your personal memories from multiple Decembers, Januaries, and Februaries (or Junes, Julys, and Augusts in the Southern Hemisphere), perhaps thinking of these months as smaller, concentric or overlapping circles within a larger one.

The work of French novelist Édouard Louis concerns itself with capturing the past and its indelible effect on the present, as the author explores the facts of his life through novelistic means. In his first autobiographical novel, The End of Eddy (FSG, 2017), translated by Michael Lucey, Louis details the experience of growing up poor and gay in a homophobic, working-class French town; in History of Violence (FSG, 2018), translated by Lorin Stein, Louis endures a brutal attack and then overhears his sister telling her husband about the assault; and in A Woman’s Battles and Transformations (FSG, 2022), translated by Tash Aw, Louis tells the story of his mother’s moving to Paris to live a new life on her own terms. Inspired by Louis’s autobiographical novels, write an essay that considers a time in your life in which you felt the urge to change or become someone new. Try to capture the intricacies of the past—the difficulties, the hopes, the dreams—through a form that reflects the transformative urgency of that moment.

While a character’s backstory can often provide the engine to a plot, how much backstory is too much? In “The Case Against the Trauma Plot,” published in the New Yorker in 2022, Parul Sehgal discusses the prevalence of the “trauma plot,” which relies on a character’s past trauma to move the story forward. Citing examples such as Hanya Yanagihara’s novel A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015), Jason Mott’s novel Hell of a Book (Dutton, 2021), and the television series Ted Lasso, Sehgal argues that the trauma plot “flattens, distorts, reduces character to symptom, and, in turn, instructs and insists upon its moral authority.” In contrast, Sehgal cites instances in which omitting backstory provides an effective air of mystery to a character, or what Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt calls “strategic opacity.” Taking inspiration from this critique, write a story in which the backstory of your character is kept from the reader. What happens when you resist explanation for a character’s choices? What tools other than backstory can you use to create a dynamic character?

Love poems have a long and storied literary history. “The Love Song for Shu-Sin,” composed in ancient Mesopotamia for use in fertility rituals, is considered by some to be the oldest love poem found in text form. “Song of Songs” from the Old Testament of the Bible celebrates the romantic and sexual love between two people. In more recent times, poets have been testing the limits of the love poem. Nate Marshall’s “palindrome” imagines an estranged lover’s life rewound like a film as the subject becomes “unpregnant” and the speaker “unlearn[s]” her name. In Sharon Olds’s “The Flurry,” two parents discuss how to tell their children they’re getting a divorce. Think of a relationship in your life that resists easy categorization and write a love poem that attempts to capture this complexity. Whether the subject is the distant love of a parental figure or the one who got away, resist the easy associations that come with the emotion and dive into love’s thorny contradictions.

Last month, musician André 3000, best known as one half of the Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast, released his first solo album, New Blue Sun. The instrumental jazz album features the artist playing flute on songs improvised in real time, a surprising turn for fans of the renowned and reclusive rapper whose last album with Outkast was in 2003. In a recent GQ video interview, the music legend speaks about authenticity as a creator and how he doesn’t feel compelled to rap about anything in his life. “I’m forty-eight years old,” he says. “And things that happen in my life, like, what are you talking about? ‘I got to go get a colonoscopy.’” Write a personal essay about how your own literary output has evolved over the years. How can you connect your creative predilections and urgencies at specific times in your life with the state of your physical body or physical space?

“What creates the vibe of a room? The other people inside it: the combined resonance of their voices,” write authors Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno in the introduction to their collaborative nonfiction book, Tone (Columbia University Press, 2023). A study on the use of tone in literary works, the authors consider how even if a room is empty, “there is a trace in the air of those who have recently left.” Begin a short story that takes place over the course of several scenes set in different places. Jot down notes for what you imagine happened in each environment before your story’s scene takes place there. How might subtle traces of those who have recently left the locale still linger and affect the tone or atmosphere of your story?

The thirteen lines of the late Molly Brodak’s self-titled poem read: “I am a good man. / The amount of fear / I am ok with / is insane. / I love many people / who don’t love me. / I don’t actually know / if that is true. / This is love. / It is a mass of ice / melting, I can’t hold / it and I have nowhere / to put it down.” Through a series of declarative, zigzagging statements, the short poem manages to touch upon a handful of intense emotions—doubt, fear, uncertainty, desperation, and helplessness—all tied together by the eponymous title. This week write a short self-titled poem. How can you bring your own deeply personal responses to questions about your life and relationships under poetic scrutiny in a way that represents your individuality?