2021 Writing Exercise Series #20: Inspired By 2... A Poem by Jason McCall

The 2021 Writing Series is a series of daily writing exercises for both prose writers and poets to keep their creative mind stretched and ready to go—fresh for your other writing endeavors. The writing prompts take the impetus—that initial crystal of creation—out of your hands (for the most part) and changes your writing creation into creative problem solving. Instead of being preoccupied with the question "What do I write" you are instead pondering "How do I make this work?" And in the process you are producing new writing.

This is not a standard writing session. This is pure production—to keep your brain thinking about using language to solve simple or complex problems. The worst thing you can do is sit there inactive. It's like taking a 5 minute breather in the middle of a spin class—the point is to push, to produce something, however imperfect. If you don't overthink it, you will be able to complete all of the exercises in under 30 minutes.

#20

Inspired By 2... "My Great-great-great-great Grandfather Who Owned My Great-great-great-great-great Grandmother Shares My Birthday and Also Moonlighted as a Silversmith"

For today's writing exercise you will first read a short piece of writing, and then respond using one of the following prompts. 

Today's inspiring piece of writing is the powerful poem "My Great-great-great-great Grandfather Who Owned My Great-great-great-great-great Grandmother Shares My Birthday and Also Moonlighted as a Silversmith" by the poet Jason McCall. This poem was published in the fourth issue of the journal Random Sample.

Seriously. Go read it. I'll wait.

I mean it, jumping right to the prompts will be borderline pointless as they won't have context. It's a 2 minute read, you got this.

I'm a sucker for a long and interesting title and this poem definitely has that. The poem witnesses the poet during a recurring activity—lurking on eBay, and follows their stream of consciousness through the creation of and intentions of the poem to the conclusion of not placing a bid. In ways relatable while being entirely this poet's poem. Something that we should all strive for with our poems. Okay, now that you've ACTUALLY READ the poem, let's write something.

1. Object: Write a piece that includes having a piece of jewelry engraved, or in which the importance of a specific engraved item is explained.

2. Titles: Write a piece using one of the following titles selected from the piece:

1) Lurking on the eBay Page 2) I Want This Poem to End with Me Standing in the Doorway 3) Downtown Montgomery 4) One Brick Taken Back 5) Coke and Rum and Spite 6) Lost Cousin 

3. Form: Poetry—Write a piece of poetry in couplets with a long title that deals with family history (real or imagined), and includes metapoetics (talks about poetry/its own mechanisms or is 'aware of its own poeminess'. Fiction—instead of couplets write your piece where each paragraph has an even number of sentences, which deals with family history (real or imagined), and includes metafictional elements.

4. Wordbank: A cross between a cento and an erasure, you can think of this as being like magnetic poetry on a refrigerator. Copy the text from the poem and paste it into a word document. Create a new piece using only words from that 'bank', when you use a word, highlight it in the bank and either 'strikethrough' or add a black background so you don't use a word twice.

5. Beginning Middle & End: Using the same 'things' from the piece's beginning/middle/end. For today begin your piece with an engraved piece of jewelry, in the middle there must be the appearance of a brick and in the end we must get a laptop, however you get from one to the other, make it your own.

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