Prompt #70 Snapshots of place

taking snapshots of place

We Write Poems:  
Place is the “where” that we exist and experience, and often an important component of our lives and what we write.  This week we invite you to make place the focal point of your poem.  More specifically we suggest a framework structure, a sort of hobo’s stew, derived from several influences.  (Thanks be to both Margo Roby’s “thirteen views” prompt and Richard Walker’s “thirteen ways about San Francisco” poem.)  Then we’re stirring with our big wooden spoon!

Here’s the process for your new poem.  01 Make your real home the starting point in terms of place.  Be specific, be close (like even your room, your house, your yard) then 02 expand out from there using what rule of measure as you decide, be it by distance (room to house to yard, down the block, across town, a mile, ten miles, for instance) or time (day by day by month by year, through childhood to adult, by seasons, even historic, again as you wish).  Or do you have another way to measure?  Once chosen, please keep the same “type” of measure throughout the poem.  03 Make each “step” a small image or snapshot, as we did for the recent thirteen ways to look poem prompt (except how many images you make is up to you, nor do they need to be a literal numbered list).  Engage your writer’s spirit of play!  The goal is to create for us a scaled sense of place.

Come back next Wednesday when you see, “It’s Post Your Poems Day!” and leave a link to the poem on your blog. If you don’t have a blog, then please, post your poem in the comment itself.    ***    You are invited to respond to the prompt given here, but if you have something else you’re just itching to share, please feel welcome in doing that. Our first desire here is to encourage you to write and learn and share.    ***    When leaving comments to other’s poems, please be appreciative and encouraging. We are not a poem “critique” site (unless someone specifically asks for that). Be kind with each other (and yourself!).    ***    Please consider including a link with your blog poem back to the prompt response here at We Write Poems so that others may see and join our community. More participants do make better soup!

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