Writing as a Walker in the City (Or Anywhere)

Writers write. That’s the definition. And sometimes, we-who-write feel cranky and rebellious toward our job. That can lead to not writing and then to becoming upset with ourselves for not writing, for not being writers. For the prompts I share this week, I’ve taken inspiration from Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and from the poet Frank O’Hara’s “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island,” and the way he imagined the sun “setting” him straight.

Prompt 1
In part 2 of his long poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman uses the phrase “The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river…”

Here are some of the glory beads he lists in part 3 of the poem:

Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,

Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,

Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,

Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,

Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,

Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water,

Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,

Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,

Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,

Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,

Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,

The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,

The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,

The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening,

The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks,

On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,

On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.

Try this: Enact the making of a string of glory beads. Describe a tree you see each day, a street you drive or walk upon, a field or hillside near your home. Describe yourself rising from bed to meet the sun there. Keep describing what you see and smell, taste and hear and touch in a day until you have a necklace or at least a bracelet. You might call the list of descriptions “Stringing Glory.”

Prompt 2

Another poet, Frank O’Hara, wrote “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island,” a poem in which the sun talks to him and urges him out of bed. Here’s the poem as it appears on the Poem Hunter website:

The Sun woke me this morning loud
and clear, saying “Hey! I’ve been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are
only the second poet I’ve ever chosen
to speak to personally

so why
aren’t you more attentive? If I could
burn you through the window I would
to wake you up. I can’t hang around
here all day.”

“Sorry, Sun, I stayed
up late last night talking to Hal.”

“When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
a lot more prompt” the Sun said
petulantly. “Most people are up
already waiting to see if I’m going
to put in an appearance.”

I tried
to apologize “I missed you yesterday.”
“That’s better” he said. “I didn’t
know you’d come out.” “You may be
wondering why I’ve come so close?”
“Yes” I said beginning to feel hot
wondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me
anyway.

“Frankly I wanted to tell you
I like your poetry. I see a lot
on my rounds and you’re okay. You may
not be the greatest thing on earth, but
you’re different. Now, I’ve heard some
say you’re crazy, they being excessively
calm themselves to my mind, and other
crazy poets think that you’re a boring
reactionary. Not me.

Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You’ll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.

If you don’t appear
at all one day they think you’re lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.

And don’t worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
for you to get to work.

And now that you
are making your own days, so to speak,
even if no one reads you but me
you won’t be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It
hurts their eyes.”
“Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!”

“Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don’t have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.

And
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.

Maybe we’ll
speak again in Africa, of which I too
am specially fond. Go back to sleep now
Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem
in that brain of yours as my farewell.”

“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake
at last. “No, go I must, they’re calling
me.”
“Who are they?”

Rising he said “Some
day you’ll know. They’re calling to you
too.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept.

Write a conversation between you and the sun. What has the sun come to tell you and how do you answer? What do you think about after the conversation? Importantly, how has the poem and your own conversation with the sun helped you keep writing?

Prompt 3

What follows are variations for writing more inspiring conversations and “glory beads”:

Try Frank O’Hara’s idea with the moon. Describe yourself rising from bed to meet the moon or checking for the moonrise earlier in the evening and writing the conversation or waking up for the setting of the moon or seeing both the moon and the sun in the sky at once and finding out how that feels to the moon. Or ask the moon about the recent eclipse, what it felt like to slowly make things go dark on part of the Earth.
Try it with the air you encounter when you open your door in the morning. What does the air have to say to you and you to it?
Think of a small area you know well but usually don’t think about — a hall closet, an empty lot, the garage where you park your car. Write three paragraphs of praise for this place and the particulars about it. Don’t worry if it seems silly and far-fetched. Just let yourself find details to praise.
Imagine an untaken photograph of yourself in an outdoor place you know well. Describe this photograph and how you came to be there and who would have taken the picture, even why they might have.

****

Use these prompts and their variations to remember that observing and the joy of being alive to do it are what power both our writing and our commitment to writing. Writing from the prompts will offer you a break from the frustrations of revision or the stasis of everyday chores to refuel your writing engine.

Comments

Writing as a Walker in the City (Or Anywhere) — 1 Comment

Sheila Bender on August 31, 2017 at 10:01 am said:

How’s the writing going? I hope some of you have some time over the Labor Day Weekend holiday to put some words on the page!

Log in to Reply

Sheila Bender's Writing It Real

Community Writing Resource

Comments

Writing as a Walker in the City (Or Anywhere) — 1 Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply