The Poem as Prayer

You will need something to write on and a writing instrument. For the first part, at least, write by hand. Time yourself as you write in some way (with a timer, the length of a song, or the length of a page). Write for roughly 2 minutes in response to the following questions. Try to write for the whole time, without stopping, in prose (in sentences/paragraphs, without line breaks). Work to get all of your thoughts on the page, without worrying about what you are writing, or how. Follow wherever your mind leads.

Describe your home in the morning. What sounds can you hear? What does it smell like? Is it hot or cold, damp or dry, dim or bright?

• Who is there?
• What are your morning rituals?
• What do you hope for?
• What makes you afraid?

Luther Hughes' poem “Stay Safe,” describes the considerable fear the speaker feels as his lover leaves the sanctuary of their home to enter a dangerous world, one the speaker feels could target his lover: “some wrong citizen will mistake him for a scar on the neighborhood—/ they will take him from me.” In an attempt to stay the threat outside, he settles for what he can do, and crafts a “a covering spell: Stay safe.”

A few questions to consider, on your own in writing, or in discussion with others:

• How would you describe the world outside the speaker’s house?
• What does the speaker fear in this poem? What does he cherish?
• What role does the natural world have in this poem?
• There are a number of dogs in this poem. What does the speaker tell us about dogs? What do dogs mean for the speaker of the poem?

Write a poem that focuses on the morning in your house, that includes the outside world in some way. Using one of the fears you wrote down earlier, cast a protective spell from one of your morning rituals, real or imagined. Try to write 20 lines.