A photograph is one of the best writing prompts going. Subject matter doesn't matter, origin doesn't either. What does matter is that something in the photo attracts or repels you, enough so that it triggers a desire to write from it. It may bring back a memory. It could simply spark an essay on a topic about which you have an opinion. Maybe there's a short story possibility in what you see. And if the photograph is an old picture that includes family, friends and/or acquaintance? Same options, except I happen to think these types of pictures are especially loaded for memoir... and poetry that smacks of memoir.
I've always loved collage and, in recent years, there's a particular kind of this medium that's drawn me in: soul collage (www.soulcollage.com). It was developed by therapist Seena Frost, who uses it with her clients and has seen its healing affects. I won't go into detail about the process but you should know that it involves exactly what I mentioned above: selecting images that attract or repel you (actually, it seems that the objects select you) and putting them into a 5" x 8" collage on pre-cut mat board. Each collage becomes a card that might, if you choose to go further, be delegated to one of four "suits" in a deck of cards. You can think of the deck as sort of Jungian, or like a Tarot deck, from which you can select a card or two each day and ponder what it might "tell" you (how you feel, what might be bothering you, are you going in the right direction, etc.). It's an tool for introspection. The card becomes more than what you were seeing and feeling at the time you created it--what you "see" can be different each time you view it. Which is why they make great writing prompts.
My favorite "suit" is the Community suit. For this one, it's a little more than just letting a card pick you. There's a little planning involved, which means you bring pictures to the table--of friends, family members, old neighbors, pets and more. These are supposed to be the individuals who form your community, who might've been mentors, who had something to do with how you became the person you are today. In a sense, they are your support group. As with all soul cards, the suggested prompt is to start with, "I Am the One Who..." and speak or write from there.
It can be the same with any old photograph. Speak/write as though you are that person and something falls onto the page. We pour our memories into a piece not worrying about fact, more concerned with truth. After all, memoir is not autobiography (a person's factual life, start to finish, or at least up until the age of the author when written). Memoir is about your own recollection of things, your own perception. What shaped you wasn't just what happened to you but also how you perceived it and how you reacted. And, unlike its cousin autobiography, it can cover only a small period of your life. We don't tell lies-- but we can fill in missing information with our questions and mention our assumptions, pondering what might have happened or why others acted as they did.
Poetry, I find, is a great tool for putting some of those memoir/memories into a short piece that conveys specific images yet doesn't have to convey exact dates. You want details in a poem, but it's a place where metaphor and simile is particulary welcome. Maybe the picture that inspires the poem isn't even a picture of the people you choose to write about. Recently, in a poetry workshop led by Therese Broderick at Eastline Books and Literary Center in Clifton Park, NY, my eyes were drawn to an interesting picture in the magazine that Therese provided to each participant. In it, a woman was playing a violin outside of what appeared to be a public building in a country-like setting. A small crowd gathered around, listening. I noticed small details such as the fact that the woman had a detachable lace collar around her neck, although otherwise casually dressed, and that every male in the crowd sported some kind of baseball cap. But my attention kept going back to that musical instrument, which I saw as a "fiddle"-- which brought me to memories of a favorite uncle and aunt. Here's where that took me:
GHOSTS
by Marilyn Zembo Day
My husband calls from Willey Street. Honey, there are ghosts
here, he says, and I know what he means. Over the phone line,
I hear the crackle of shuffling cards, the echo of Uncle Charlie
calling Deuces wild; clattering dice tumbling across the dark wood
of a well-scratched kitchen table, Scrabble tiles snapping into place.
Laughter backs up shouts of May I, and the slow fizzing of caps
twisting clear of Budweiser bottles mists over my eyes.
No one loves a game more than a Willey or a Boyd. No one
enjoys a beer better either. In the basement making adjustments
on a boiler that will soon hum for new residents, Bill listens
for the rattle of pans in the kitchen, thinks he detects the scent
of frying brook trout and bass. A distant memory flickers:
he is supporting the backend of a rowboat as he and my uncle ascend
a steep Adirondack hill, intent on better fishing streams beyond.
My young husband huffs and puffs, barely able to keep pace
as he grasps at his slippery end of the craft. Charlie, 70-year-old
fisherman, carpenter, weaver of baskets, doesn’t break a sweat.
If you put his fiddle in hand, Charlie Willey might easily call
a mountain square dance as they climb, keeping time with passing
clouds, the flight of a bald eagle, the migration of deer, elk
and star-eyed wolves. I do not wonder at this man’s imprint
on a house he built, on a street he once owned, in a town in which
his name meant something. I don’t ask my husband if he heard
the click-clacking of Aunt Helen’s knitting needles or the quiet
whirr of her sewing machine upstairs. I imagine a gentler impression
like the steady skilled stitches of her embroidery, creating a pattern,
an umbrella-logo under which family sheltered and blossomed,
nourished in her garden, by books and warm homemade cookies.
At my aunt’s memorial service, her grandson Doug predicted
the unthinkable: Soon, he said, there will be no more Willeys
on Willey Street. Wrong, I thought. When you spend decades
in a house built with your own hands, its one-time green-shingled exterior
cradles your spirit. If new owners are worthy, perhaps walls will whisper
secret strategies to them: how to win at Jacks or Better, how to catch
the biggest fish, when to let it all go to just love and be loved.
YOUR TURN
1. Pull out an old family photo album. Choose three photographs and let them inspire some writing. If you don't know where to begin, become one of the people in the photo and start with I am the One who... Don't worry about exact data like dates and time or even place; the details can be about the expression on the person's face, what s/he was wearing, did s/he seem comfortable posing, what is s/he doing (if you don't know, imagine).
2. Grab some old magazines and thumb through them, pulling out a batch of pictures that either attract or repel you. Gather at least 10 of them. Create a collage with a few of the objects in the pictures. Perhaps one of them will provide a background for the collage. Try not to do too much thinking as you create; just do it. And don't worry about artistic composition. Once it's together, take a few minutes to decide what it is saying to you. From the jumble, can you find a memory? Of a person, an event, something that was important to you? Does a part of the picture you've created bring back smells and sounds of another time? Does something move you to imagine a relative's or friend's life? Write whatever comes.
3. Take your camera and yourself somewhere that you can take plenty of pictures. Go crazy with that shutter button! (Digital is best, if you have one, since you can download right away and not have to wait for development.) Choose one of your new pictures from which to write-- what made you snap that picture? what sensations surround the object(s)-- joy? sadness? pain? violence? where are you in all this (observing only? commentator on an issue? appreciating its beauty? chronicling a place and time?). Write whatever comes.
I've always loved collage and, in recent years, there's a particular kind of this medium that's drawn me in: soul collage (www.soulcollage.com). It was developed by therapist Seena Frost, who uses it with her clients and has seen its healing affects. I won't go into detail about the process but you should know that it involves exactly what I mentioned above: selecting images that attract or repel you (actually, it seems that the objects select you) and putting them into a 5" x 8" collage on pre-cut mat board. Each collage becomes a card that might, if you choose to go further, be delegated to one of four "suits" in a deck of cards. You can think of the deck as sort of Jungian, or like a Tarot deck, from which you can select a card or two each day and ponder what it might "tell" you (how you feel, what might be bothering you, are you going in the right direction, etc.). It's an tool for introspection. The card becomes more than what you were seeing and feeling at the time you created it--what you "see" can be different each time you view it. Which is why they make great writing prompts.
My favorite "suit" is the Community suit. For this one, it's a little more than just letting a card pick you. There's a little planning involved, which means you bring pictures to the table--of friends, family members, old neighbors, pets and more. These are supposed to be the individuals who form your community, who might've been mentors, who had something to do with how you became the person you are today. In a sense, they are your support group. As with all soul cards, the suggested prompt is to start with, "I Am the One Who..." and speak or write from there.
It can be the same with any old photograph. Speak/write as though you are that person and something falls onto the page. We pour our memories into a piece not worrying about fact, more concerned with truth. After all, memoir is not autobiography (a person's factual life, start to finish, or at least up until the age of the author when written). Memoir is about your own recollection of things, your own perception. What shaped you wasn't just what happened to you but also how you perceived it and how you reacted. And, unlike its cousin autobiography, it can cover only a small period of your life. We don't tell lies-- but we can fill in missing information with our questions and mention our assumptions, pondering what might have happened or why others acted as they did.
Poetry, I find, is a great tool for putting some of those memoir/memories into a short piece that conveys specific images yet doesn't have to convey exact dates. You want details in a poem, but it's a place where metaphor and simile is particulary welcome. Maybe the picture that inspires the poem isn't even a picture of the people you choose to write about. Recently, in a poetry workshop led by Therese Broderick at Eastline Books and Literary Center in Clifton Park, NY, my eyes were drawn to an interesting picture in the magazine that Therese provided to each participant. In it, a woman was playing a violin outside of what appeared to be a public building in a country-like setting. A small crowd gathered around, listening. I noticed small details such as the fact that the woman had a detachable lace collar around her neck, although otherwise casually dressed, and that every male in the crowd sported some kind of baseball cap. But my attention kept going back to that musical instrument, which I saw as a "fiddle"-- which brought me to memories of a favorite uncle and aunt. Here's where that took me:
GHOSTS
by Marilyn Zembo Day
My husband calls from Willey Street. Honey, there are ghosts
here, he says, and I know what he means. Over the phone line,
I hear the crackle of shuffling cards, the echo of Uncle Charlie
calling Deuces wild; clattering dice tumbling across the dark wood
of a well-scratched kitchen table, Scrabble tiles snapping into place.
Laughter backs up shouts of May I, and the slow fizzing of caps
twisting clear of Budweiser bottles mists over my eyes.
No one loves a game more than a Willey or a Boyd. No one
enjoys a beer better either. In the basement making adjustments
on a boiler that will soon hum for new residents, Bill listens
for the rattle of pans in the kitchen, thinks he detects the scent
of frying brook trout and bass. A distant memory flickers:
he is supporting the backend of a rowboat as he and my uncle ascend
a steep Adirondack hill, intent on better fishing streams beyond.
My young husband huffs and puffs, barely able to keep pace
as he grasps at his slippery end of the craft. Charlie, 70-year-old
fisherman, carpenter, weaver of baskets, doesn’t break a sweat.
If you put his fiddle in hand, Charlie Willey might easily call
a mountain square dance as they climb, keeping time with passing
clouds, the flight of a bald eagle, the migration of deer, elk
and star-eyed wolves. I do not wonder at this man’s imprint
on a house he built, on a street he once owned, in a town in which
his name meant something. I don’t ask my husband if he heard
the click-clacking of Aunt Helen’s knitting needles or the quiet
whirr of her sewing machine upstairs. I imagine a gentler impression
like the steady skilled stitches of her embroidery, creating a pattern,
an umbrella-logo under which family sheltered and blossomed,
nourished in her garden, by books and warm homemade cookies.
At my aunt’s memorial service, her grandson Doug predicted
the unthinkable: Soon, he said, there will be no more Willeys
on Willey Street. Wrong, I thought. When you spend decades
in a house built with your own hands, its one-time green-shingled exterior
cradles your spirit. If new owners are worthy, perhaps walls will whisper
secret strategies to them: how to win at Jacks or Better, how to catch
the biggest fish, when to let it all go to just love and be loved.
YOUR TURN
1. Pull out an old family photo album. Choose three photographs and let them inspire some writing. If you don't know where to begin, become one of the people in the photo and start with I am the One who... Don't worry about exact data like dates and time or even place; the details can be about the expression on the person's face, what s/he was wearing, did s/he seem comfortable posing, what is s/he doing (if you don't know, imagine).
2. Grab some old magazines and thumb through them, pulling out a batch of pictures that either attract or repel you. Gather at least 10 of them. Create a collage with a few of the objects in the pictures. Perhaps one of them will provide a background for the collage. Try not to do too much thinking as you create; just do it. And don't worry about artistic composition. Once it's together, take a few minutes to decide what it is saying to you. From the jumble, can you find a memory? Of a person, an event, something that was important to you? Does a part of the picture you've created bring back smells and sounds of another time? Does something move you to imagine a relative's or friend's life? Write whatever comes.
3. Take your camera and yourself somewhere that you can take plenty of pictures. Go crazy with that shutter button! (Digital is best, if you have one, since you can download right away and not have to wait for development.) Choose one of your new pictures from which to write-- what made you snap that picture? what sensations surround the object(s)-- joy? sadness? pain? violence? where are you in all this (observing only? commentator on an issue? appreciating its beauty? chronicling a place and time?). Write whatever comes.
