The title of this poem is a question that can never definitively be answered but how beautifully Ruth Stone does answer it here. Notice how she makes poetry—its structure and the very language—physical: the “building blocks” of stanzas, the feel of words and letters in the mouth, the leaves on the trees and on the ground.
For the first prompt, write your own answer to the poem’s title.
The second prompt is to imagine each stanza or a poem’s overall structure as a brick or building and the resulting universe each one creates. Walk your readers through these spaces, the foundations spanning centuries and languages.
The third prompt is to make the alphabet physical, its feel in the mouth or its sound (perhaps like the rustling of leaves), or its appearance on the page as the driving force in a poem or story.
The last prompt is to build a poem or story from the following list of words: “slight,” “pressure,” “teeth,” “transparent,” “ochre,”“sisters,” “ground,” “handful,” “blocks” and “invent.”
Bonus prompt: Write whatever this photograph (taken years ago with the now defunct app PaperCamera).
Good luck writing and building. Have fun!