The NYU Creative Writing Program's Undergraduate Literary Journal
Let's call this the "dedication" prompt.Write a poem/story that begins with: To the one who...To the one who (brilliance brilliance brilliance)To the one who (youaresuchagoodwriteryouaresuchagoodwriter)etc.Let the anaphora of the phrase take you where you want to go.
Hello all!Am I the only one who gets ecstatically happy at the prospect of receiving a new poem every day in my inbox? Ah, thank you, my ears are tingling with the echo of that resounding "NO! Tell me more!"If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe (for free!) to The Academy of American Poets poem-a-day email list. In 2009, the blissful poem-a-day routine only lasted for the month of April (National Poetry Month! I know, as if anyone needs a reason to love April more) but since April 2010, the Academy decided--with the help of internet voters--that the poem-a-day extravaganza should last year round. Hear, hear.So sign up, sit back, and start every morning by reading a new poem by an author you may or may not have heard of before. LOVE IT!And, to sign off, a prompt:Write a poem made solely of observations. As in, not putting you or your mind in there--just what you see/hear/smell/taste/touch. For example: I saw a blue wool coat lying across a cream-colored quilt. Not: I saw my roommate's coat lying across my bed. 10-20 lines. See what kind of scene you can create using these sparse images.
Hello all!Welcome back to the real world (insert hard stare). The gloves come off!But do keep all gloves and mittens on because it was 6 degrees today and no one wants any fingers to fall off. You need them to write! And what good writing weather it is. Because you can’t go outside.During the last few days of freedom before the spring term began, I spent my time immersed in book called ROOM by Emma Donoghue, daughter of NYU’s esteemed Henry James Professor of English and American Letters, Professor Denis Donoghue.The book has been nominated for many prizes and has been on many best-seller lists since September 2010, when it was published. It is an utterly absorbing story told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack. Jack is kind of amazing. And so is his story: he is the child of a woman who was kidnapped seven years before the novel begins. The novel takes place in the 11-by-11-foot room he and his mother have been trapped and living in.ROOM is by turns a thrilling escape story, a hilarious and frightening explorer’s tale, part literary horror film (horror…novel?), and the heartbreaking and heart-strengthening chronicles of a boy and his mother. The mother-son relationship is the life-blood of the book and if you were a child or have a parent (YES I MEAN EVERYONE YES THANK YOU) you should read ROOM. You won't put it down until you've finished it. Guaranteed.But besides giving a quasi-review of the book (OK a full-blown, passionate argument on its behalf)—I meant to post a writing exercise. In ROOM, Jack speaks of the objects surrounding him as if they were Close Friends. A rug is not just a thing on the floor. For Jack, it is Rug, a good friend and confidant who is there to be played with. So too with Table, and with Plant. He does this because his world is 11-by-11 feet wide. Your world is not this size, but try to scale everything down. This is an exercise in description.So: Try writing about an object like Jack might. You don’t have to write what it is, but try to write from a perspective that incorporates more than an object’s physical appearance—write in a way that informs what that object DOES to your world, how you interact with it. What does Lamp (that weird little lamp in your bedroom that your mom got you from an antique store when you were really young and didn’t care about presents that weren’t stuffed animals, that one with the peeling lace around the shade) mean to you? What light might this throw on the way you look at your surroundings?
BACK TO WORK! You can do this. Power through!Prompt: find a poem in another language (preferably one you do not know). Look at the words, look at the length of the lines. Translate the poem based solely on this information.
Hello everyone. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. Since today is Black Friday, I'm sure most of you are out shopping. Alas, I was not brave enough this year to wait in line for hours and to bump into someone every other step. So, I'll just experience the crushing crowd (and the impatience I would have had waiting in line) when you write about your experience today.Here's the prompt: Write about anything out of the ordinary that happened during your Black Friday shopping experience (I'm sure there's lots that occur). You can just be a bystander looking at all the mayhem, if you want. If nothing bizarre occurred then still write about your Black Friday experience. Try writing it as a song, a sonnet, or anything else creative. Have fun with it.
Now that it's November, stop buying things. Suppress the urge. Instead, make lists of what you want. Give those lists to people (people with money, i.e. relatives) and kiss them. It's especially good to take note of what books you want because I can guarantee that some grandparent will jump at the chance to give that book to you.This year, instead of the usual fiction and poetry request, may I suggest exploring the world of letters. Great writers (and artists!) write great letters. Browse a few collections at the nearest bookstore and note them down for those wish-lists.A few of my favorite collections include: selected letters of Emily Dickinson, of Virginia Woolf, of John Keats, of Vincent van Gogh. Dickinson's letters will literally blow your mind. But you'll have the whole of winter vacation to gather yourself up again. I'm serious: if you find it hard to get into Dickinson's poetry, reading her letters is like reading her poetry but there's even more room to move around in. And she can be hilarious. (She's so weird. And I by weird I mean how-did-you-exist-you're-so-fantastic.) Plus, she sent most of her poems in letters to her friends and family. So they're in there too.ALSO: with these letters in your possession, you can have a grand old time writing erasures. Erasures are poems formed by taking a text and using its words to create a new poem. For example, if I wrote "The sun was behind the clouds but I could still see your face", you could take this and write "The sun was still your face" or simply "behind your face" or even "the face". Use as many of the words or as few as you want. Using letters as your main source helps your creation flow because you can use "I" a lot more. And "I" always makes a poem seem more human.(Don't be scared, don't let your honor get in the way. This is not stealing. The English language is FREE! And anyway, wasn't it T.S. Eliot who said "Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal." So there's that.)
Greetings, citizens of the world. Cate here. I’ll be practicing greetings for a long while.I hope you’re having one of those meeting-people-unexpectedly-and-receiving-them-warmly kind of days that can be hard to come by. But when you’re on, you’re on.Possibly you’re wind-stung and flushed because it is so cold out. You look good red, don’t worry.Here’s a writing exercise to try. Write a statement so bold your reader can’t help but accept it based on the authority of your voice. We could all use some more declarative sentences in our lives. Let me elaborate. Take, for example, how Matthew Rohrer opens a poem called “Beautiful Things” with the line: “When we say something is beautiful/we mean we can laterally bisect it.” I want to read the rest of this poem because 1) a part of me unconsciously desires to affirm what the poet says, 2) it’s a unique, curious statement but it’s not outlandish and 3) this promises an explanation will follow. And 4), let’s not kid ourselves, it’s Matthew Rohrer. (He teaches in the Creative Writing department and I suggest applying for one of his poetry classes before worrying about where your next meal is coming from.)Now then. Take this statement and disavow it by the end of the poem. Either blatantly or let it slowly unravel as the line count grows. (or Don’t. Just affirm, affirm, affirm.) Make it at least 20 lines.Then pack up your notebook and TAKE TO THE STREETS! Find a friend roaming around and read it to him or her. If he or she is aroused by your intelligence and prowess, send it in. That turns us on too.