Learning Prompt

Reap What You Sow

Originally Published: June 01, 2020
Illustration of colorful figures using pencils and pens to make lines on notebook paper. The figures float on books on a yellow background.
Art by Sirin Thada.

A few questions to consider, on your own in writing, or in discussion with others:
Have you ever planted a garden? Who do we normally expect to do the work of gardening? Why? What’s the difference between the wilderness and gardening? Why are some plants considered to be weeds and others aren’t? If you could plant any garden, what would be in it?

Now write some lists:

  • 5 of your favorite flowers or plants
  • 5 things that sustain you
  • 5 things you are cultivating inside yourself to use later
  • 5 mistakes you’ve made, and the lessons you have learned or ways you have grown from them
  • 5 moments in history that have affected your life
  • 5 moments in your life that shaped who you are
  • 5 dreams you have for the future

Now, read Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, a poem in which the poet expresses gratitude for small but life-giving things. Why might he choose to praise these in this poem? What does it mean for your ancestors to have loved you before they knew you? How did your ancestors show it? What might it mean to be grateful for some things at the same time that many are experiencing pain and persecution? What are you grateful for? What sustains you?

Now, read Rick Barot’s On Gardens, a poem about the way some gardens might obscure or hide an unpretty history. What kind of garden does the poet want to see? What does the poet mean when he describes the quiet that covers the earth? What kind of story can a garden tell? How can a garden be beautiful without being pretty? What might it mean to reap what history has sown?

Now, read Diane Seuss’ backyard song, which describes the poet’s decision to abandon the front she used to “put up like a yard/ gussied and groomed,” and just be herself. What kinds of “fronts” do you put up? What would it be like to let the garden of yourself grow wild?

Now, using the lists you’ve brainstormed, write a poem about what kind of garden you would be, or what the garden of your dreams would look like, even if it’s not pretty, or pretty in an unconventional way.