The Future Beyond Imagining—Prompts Inspired by Jane Hirshfield

As you may know, I am a huge fan of Jane Hirshfield. I admire how in her “I speak with the future” she can include eons and the present day all the while looking at a future far beyond our understanding.

If you would like to hear her read “I speak with the future, click on the link: https://poets.org/poem/i-speak-future.

It may be helpful to know Merriam-Webster's definition of “kalpa” is "a duration of time in Hinduism covering a complete cosmic cycle from the origination to the destruction of a world system."

For the first prompt, use the line "We speak of beauty by moving our jaws and teeth" as a ghostline, erasing the line after writing the poem and crediting the poet in an after statement or in your title. 

The second prompt is to create two places within your poem: a safe inner place and an outer one full of the world's tragedies and harms. 

The third is to write a poem, imagining the world reborn after ours is destroyed. 

For the next, look at Piranesi's “The Staircase with Trophies,” from his series Le Carceri d’Invenzione (The Imaginary Prisons) for inspiration: https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/visual-world/item/5541

For the final prompt, create a poem from the following list of words: "bones," "teeth," "walled," "staircase," "hummingbird," "world," "nectar," "uneclipsed," "passing," "portions" and "imagine."

Bonus prompt: what made the birds rise and describe their movements and sound.

Good luck writing!