In the twentieth anniversary edition of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine writes in the preface about her use of the first-person voice “to bear witness to the witness” and provide emotion while maintaining an intimacy within the text. “Anybody could embody the first person and be our guide through the text,” writes Rankine. “For me, at the time, this was a liberating mechanism for getting at the ineffable affective disorder of the moment without disconnecting from the people affected by it.” Write a poem about an event currently unfolding in the world, either locally or on a global scale. Deploy the first-person “I” as a tool to guide the reader through what’s being witnessed. Are there multiple emotional truths at play? How can you give them shape?

“I have known brilliant writers who could size people up in minutes with alarming accuracy.... And yet for all their ability to understand people, to see them, to capture them as characters, these writers could not see themselves,” writes Literary Hub editor-in-chief Jonny Diamond in a piece reflecting on a recent op-ed written by the daughter of Nobel laureate Alice Munro, Andrea Skinner, about her mother’s failure to protect her from sexual abuse by her stepfather. Write a personal essay that traces your self-awareness through several phases of your life, contemplating on how your understanding and perception of yourself has transformed through the years. Can you reconcile the differing points of view that various people in your life hold about you? Are there blind spots that, even if you can’t or don’t want to articulate, you wish to acknowledge?

Ghosting, the social practice of suddenly cutting off communication without explanation by no longer accepting or responding to calls or messages, is often associated with dating but can also extend to other arenas of interpersonal communication and socializing, such as the interview process for a new job or with friends and family. Write a short story that revolves around two people, one of whom ghosts the other. What are the dynamics of communication that lead up to the ghosting, and what is the fallout? Are excuses made or is hindsight twenty-twenty? Consider how much of each party’s point of view to reveal prior to and after the ghosting.

In medieval European cathedrals, some of the panes of the beautiful stained glass windows are thicker at the bottom than at the top, creating misconceptions that the seemingly solid glass has melted over time. According to an article published in Scientific American, glass is an amorphous solid, a state that is neither solid nor liquid but something in between disproving the theory of melted glass. The differences in thickness of old glass windows is merely a product of the manufacturing process, giving them a melted look. This week write a poem inspired by the idea of something, or even someone, existing in an in-between state. Consider playing with the line breaks and white space of your page to mirror or contrast with your chosen subject.