The Time Is Now

“My materialist mind, I can’t / shake it,” writes Solmaz Sharif in her poem “Now What” from her second collection, Customs, forthcoming in March by Graywolf Press. The speaker of the poem sits in a hotel in Ohio eating takeout and meditating on the origins of the meal, tracing connections back into history and the people whose hands made this food possible: “Within a perfect / little tub of garlic / butter // a relief of workers, of sickles / fields of soy.” Write a poem that meditates on the origins of a favorite condiment, seasoning, or meal. Try to establish a time and place in the poem by beginning in the present, then leap into the anecdotal or historical stories that come to you.

Last week’s Ten Questions series featured Sarah Manguso, whose first novel, Very Cold People (Hogarth, 2022), chronicles the coming of age of a young girl named Ruthie in a small town in Massachusetts. The series highlights the writing process of authors and how their books come together. Asked about writing impediments, Manguso replies: “At the risk of sounding coy, I’ll say that the biggest impediment to my writing life was recently removed from my life. I currently feel unimpeded.” Inspired by Manguso’s response, make a list of impediments to your writing life. Try to avoid superficial answers. Then, write an essay about how you see yourself overcoming these obstacles.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, temperatures are beginning to warm up indicating the coming of spring. This period in February, in which there can be a week of mild weather with birds chirping and plants blossoming followed by a deep freeze, is what climate scientists call “false spring.” Write a short story set in the interstices of seasons. For example, in the cold week at the end of summer signifying the coming of autumn, or just before spring. What tension can the setting of a story add to the conflict in a character?

As with this past weekend’s Super Bowl, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States, before the start of sports events is a time-honored tradition. Poet Ada Limón has made that eventful moment the center of her poem “A New National Anthem,” which is included in her collection The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018). “The truth is, I’ve never cared for the National / Anthem. If you think about it, it’s not a good / song,” writes Limón. “And what of the stanzas / we never sing, the third that mentions ‘no refuge / could save the hireling and the slave’? Perhaps, / the truth is, every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza.” Write a poem inspired by a country’s national anthem. What are your feelings about it? Is it a good song?

“The best thing to come out of all of this is that my perception of the novel’s failures really awakened a new awareness in me,” says Jonathan Evison in a conversation with Caroline Leavitt from the March/April 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, in which they discuss their failed novels and what went wrong. “So much of writing fiction is persuasion. But a subtle persuasion.” This week, write an essay that reflects on a piece of writing that you think has failed. Try to parse the technical and emotional issues that occur when something isn’t working.

Boxes of chocolate, a bouquet of roses, candlelit dinners, greeting cards. As Valentine’s Day nears, the pressure to make a romantic gesture or celebrate the day looms with storefront decorations and advertisements. However, high expectations mixed with packed restaurants and a shortage of flowers can lead to disastrous and disappointing evenings. Write a story that takes place on Valentine’s Day, or the days leading up to it, in which a romantic evening goes awry. How can you amp up the stakes of the story early on to help build up the tension of the disappointing day?

“From narrow provinces / of fish and bread and tea, / home of the long tides / where the bay leaves the sea,” writes Elizabeth Bishop in her iconic poem “The Moose,” in which she writes about a bus ride through Nova Scotia, describing in detail both the natural landscape and the conversations happening inside the bus. The poem takes its title from the final scene, in which the bus stops in front of a moose in the middle of the road. Write a poem that takes place entirely within the stretch of a single journey. Be it by plane, bus, or car, how can you use the finite sense of a journey to your poem’s advantage?

Whether it’s sledding outside or staying cozy inside, a snowstorm can offer an occasion to get together and enjoy the scenic weather phenomenon unfold. Soft and pillowy at first, then sludgy and slippery the next day, the window to enjoy the snowfall is brief, which makes it a polarizing aspect of the winter season. Inspired by the recent blizzards hitting the Northeast region of the United States, write an essay about your memories of snow. Have you lived through a snowstorm or have you only experienced the magic of snow through movies and stories?

“I wanted to make a character who is sometimes good and sometimes bad, yet neither comicially nor tragically so. She’s just misguided, self-absorbed, and wrong,” writes Destiny O. Birdsong in her Craft Capsule essay “Ain’t We Got Enough Problems?” In the essay, Birdsong discusses her relationship with an unlikeable character in her forthcoming debut novel, Nobody’s Magic (Grand Central Publishing, 2022), and how she grew to love her. Inspired by Birdsong, write a story focused on an unlikable protagonist that reveals some of your worst fears about yourself. Show the character’s vulnerabilities as well as their misdeeds so the reader can go on the journey of understanding them.

In Lee Young-ju’s “A Girl and the Moon” from her collection Cold Candies (Black Ocean, 2021), translated from the Korean by Jae Kim, image and story are woven together into a spellbinding prose poem that maintains its steady rhythm through the consistent use of commas. “Mid-night, swinging upside down on a pull-up bar, the girl says, Mother, this bone growing on my back, white in the night, protruding out of my skin, long and endlessly this bone,” writes Young-ju. This week, write a poem that uses commas as its only punctuation. Does this formal constraint challenge your syntax and word choice?