Make a list of five rooms, HVAC units, appliances, and/or storage areas. Think kitchen, furnace, nursery, basement, roof, chimney, patio, closet, furnace, etc. Next make a list of five organs, systems, or areas of the body. Look at the lists. What sparks for you? Write a poem that names a room or appliance or building and associate with your body or another’s. What is stored there—kept but hidden—what is used daily. What memory or loved one do you display in the curve of cheek, the crook of your elbow, the fluttering of your lungs? What lies in the depths of your bowels. What burns deep in your furnace? What voice pulses in your wrist? What song does your breath croon as you close your eyes for sleep?
This prompt was inspired by Laura Kasischke’s “Song” found in her book in Space in Chains. Or as the Ugly Mug crew would say: my attempt to reverse engineer her poem. Alas, I am not the technician that Steve Ramirez is. Check out Kasischke’s similarly beautiful poem “Kitchen Song” and (as always) buy her book! Thank you, Danielle Mitchell, for recommending this poet to me.
The book....and she has others of course.
Sometimes what we love, breaks open our foundation, and the beauty is in what remains.
