Shira Erlichman Writing Prompt

THROUGH THE DOOR

Find a quote you love, a piece of advice, a proverb. Number your page 1 to 15. Write the quote you love in the 15 spot. For example, my quote is “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” Then, on line 14, mishear your quote through a door. So for example, my line 14 would be “Sue the fear it takes. Share the gun.” Do the same from line 14 to 13. Mine would be “Brew the tear-lit cakes. Bear the sun.” 

Do this, moving backward up the page all the way to the 1 spot, moving backward up the page. When done, erase the numbers. Where you end up is the beginning of your poem. 

The point is to get loose, stretch your ear, hear something new. The point is for advice to grow from the crooked places, the jumbled, the mistaken. This is underwater gossip. Dive and gurgle.

Shira Erlichman’s 30/30 Prompt #1  (a): If this photograph is your life, which character are you? The leaping tiger? The ladder clinger? The bike rider? Or, are you the ladder itself? Is the ladder clinger your worries? Is the tightrope music? Is the cyclist the girl you met that urged you out of your suffocating town? Write yourself in to this picture. Let one (or all) objects represent a struggle, a helper, a dare. Or: (b) Title this photograph after a desperate time/situation in your life. It might be: “When I finally realized it was Bipolar, not prophesy” or “Mom and dad split when I was 10.” How does the image illustrate that? Write the poem based on the tension in the image. Imagine who is who. How would events unfold? Who leapt, who watched, who risked, who led, who barely made it out alive?(Note: This photograph is real and taken at a zoo in China.)
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Shira Erlichman’s 30/30 Prompt #1 

(a): If this photograph is your life, which character are you? The leaping tiger? The ladder clinger? The bike rider? Or, are you the ladder itself? Is the ladder clinger your worries? Is the tightrope music? Is the cyclist the girl you met that urged you out of your suffocating town? Write yourself in to this picture. Let one (or all) objects represent a struggle, a helper, a dare. 

Or: (b) Title this photograph after a desperate time/situation in your life. It might be: “When I finally realized it was Bipolar, not prophesy” or “Mom and dad split when I was 10.” How does the image illustrate that? Write the poem based on the tension in the image. Imagine who is who. How would events unfold? Who leapt, who watched, who risked, who led, who barely made it out alive?

(Note: This photograph is real and taken at a zoo in China.)