RED RIBBON

A COLLECTION OF WRITING PROMPTS/INSPIRATION

BY KIERSTON RILEY

1.

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Silence by Marianne Moore

My father used to say,“Superior people never make long visits,have to be shown Longfellow’s graveor the glass flowers at Harvard.Self-reliant like the cat –that takes its prey to privacy,the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth – they sometimes enjoy solitude,and can be robbed of speechby speech which has delighted them.The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;not in silence, but restraint.”Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”Inns are not residences.

i. I tell you I forget

ii. fragments we are, fragments they read

iii. They used to tell me / I’m not supposed to talk about / This is what they say

about me now

iv. There are things that I don’t talk about.

v. Write about a forbidden activity.

vi. A time they said “no”

vii. Write what was left behind.

viii. Write about humiliating exposure.

ix. Write about compassion.

x. The flaws of my heart

xi. I abandon you each night (Armando Silva Carvalho)

2.

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” – Walt Whitman

Night Poem by Margaret Atwood

There is nothing to be afraid of, it is only the wind changing to the east, it is only your father the thunder your mother the rain

In this country of water with its beige moon damp as a mushroom, its drowned stumps and long birds that swim, where the moss grows on all sides of the trees and your shadow is not your shadow but your reflection,

your true parents disappear when the curtain covers your door. We are the others, the ones from under the lake who stand silently beside your bed with our heads of darkness. We have come to cover you with red wool, with our tears and distant whispers.

You rock in the rain's arms the chilly ark of your sleep, while we wait, your night father and mother

with our cold hands and dead flashlight, knowing we are only the wavering shadows thrown by one candle, in this echo you will hear twenty years later.

i. What happened is, we grew lonely (Lisel Mueller)

ii. Tell me about despair, yours (Mary Oliver)

iii. What do you fear? What do you lament?

iv. Write about a voice you will never forget.

v. Write about seeking help.

vi. The first thing I heard this morning

vii. When your eyes are tired and the world is tired too

viii. This is not about…

ix. What I meant to tell you

x. Nothing/everything has changed

xi. There’s a nagging thought: (Louis Jenkins)

3.

“The soul is the mirror of an indestructible universe.” – Gottfried Leibniz

Naked Before God by Linda Neal

I am what. I am in the middle of a life and at the beginning sorting small change from large, making patterns on the carpet, watching shadows from the shutters.

Every life has a pattern that weaves itself out of daylight and what it gleans from corners or the undersides of leaves.

Words become clothes, but I am bare, naked as the animal that offers itself for food, naked as the air feeling the sky: that is how I must live.

i. Write a letter to yourself

ii. Write your secrets.

iii. Write what ignites you.

iv. What holds you back?

v. And the body? What about the body? (Jane Kenyon)

vi. Write the voice of your body.

vii. Write what you know.

viii. Think about your scars or a scar of disbelief and write its story.

ix. How do you know who you are? What if you did not speak?

x. What do you need to heal? Make a list and write into one or more of the things

on it.

xi. What would you write if you only had 8 lines worth of ink?

4.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

relentless as the tarantula by Charles Bukowski

they're not going to let you sit at a front table at some cafe in Europe in the mid-afternoon sun. if you do, somebody's going to drive by and spray your guts with a submachine gun. they're not going to let you feel good for very long anywhere. the forces aren't going to let you sit around fucking-off and relaxing. you've got to go their way. the unhappy, the bitter and the vengeful need their fix - which is you or somebody anybody in agony, or better yet dead, dropped into some

hole. as long as there are humans about there is never going to be any peace for any individual upon this earth or anywhere else they might escape to. all you can do is maybe grab ten lucky minutes here or maybe an hour there. something is working toward you right now, and I mean you and nobody but you.

i. This is a place of first permission (Robert Duncan)

ii. “I love you. What are you going to do about it?”

iii. A place I’d rather be

iv. The days I like best

v. What do you like? What do you remember?

vi. Nothing in the world is as hopeful as…

vii. The slow unbuttoning, unclasping, until at last (Gary Johnson)

viii. Write about a body that pleases you.

ix. The first time

x. The last time

xi. Write from the seat of a waiting room.

5.

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

Last Night the Rain Spoke To Me by Mary Oliver

Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, saying,

what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud, to be happy again

in a new way on the earth! That’s what it said as it dropped,

smelling of iron, and vanished like a dream of the ocean into the branches

and the grass below. Then it was over. The sky cleared. I was standing

under a tree. The tree was a tree with happy leaves,

and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky that were also themselves at the moment at which moment

my right hand was holding my left hand which was holding the tree which was filled with stars

and the soft rain— imagine! imagine! the long and wondrous journeys still to be ours.

i. Remember what is was that I loved about you

ii. Things that get lost / things that we find

iii. I didn’t know who I was or who you were, (Freya Manfred)

iv. They have hearts that must be blind (Alberto Pimenta)

v. And when I get home I like

vi. Into memory the places they raided

vii. What will you call me?

viii. Take a sliver of life and write in great detail.

ix. Write about the quality of light.

x. In all the love I had felt for you before, (John Updike)

xi. Some things we never forget

6.

“We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” – Jane Austen

The Dictionary by Charles Simic

Maybe there is a word in it somewhere to describe the world this morning,a word for the way the early light takes delight in chasing the darkness out of store windows and doorways. Another word for the way it lingers over a pair of wire-rimmed glasses someone let drop on the sidewalk last night and staggered off blindly talking to himself or breaking into song.

i. Fill for me a brimming bowl (John Keats)

ii. Write a postcard to the unknown.

iii. Name yourself. (i.e. I am water, I am _____) Write from that sense of self.

iv. The times I wish I had a notebook

v. Tell me something I can’t forget.

vi. In this one you are

vii. Write about losing track of time.

viii. So much depends upon (William Carlos Williams)

ix. What I know is that, / What can I say? / What I don't say is that

x. It’s a curse,

xi. Women are the ones who…

7.

“The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.” – Oscar Wilde

For You by Maureen N. McLane

It’s been a long while since I was up before you but here I am, up before you.

I see you sleeping now that I am up before you. I see the whole morning before you.

How dare the sun be up before you when the moon last night promised to hold off the sun just for you!

I hear the church bells ring before you. Most days it’s true the birds are up before you.

I should make the coffee, as I am up before you. I might just lie here though before you

wake up. Let me look at you, since I am here before you. I am so rarely simply quiet before you.

The orange cat who’ll soon wake you is always up before you. In Morocco or Lamu the muezzin would be up before you.

And yes it’s true most days the sun is up before you – long before me and a while before you.

Shall I make it a habit, to be up before you? To see your soft cheek and feel your breath if I am up before you?

Shall I prepare the mise-en-scène for you?

Hold the shot of the sun in my eye just for you?

Go back to sleep my love for you are only dreaming I am up before you.

i. Write what you have too much of.

ii. Alone I cannot be (Emily Dickinson)

iii. If I could commit to anything, I’d say

iv. I knew I was okay when…

v. Imagine emptying the pockets of a loved one. What do you find?

vi. Write about an emotionally charged event.

vii. What is in the landscape of your heart?

viii. Write the ways you show love.

ix. Write the sky you were born under

x. Write a sad lie.

xi. For the first time this year

8.

“In the depths of the winter I finally found in myself an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus

Spring, 2012by David Bottoms

I rub my eyes. The world is still green –a lime dust coating the porch tiles, rocking chairs, patio, yard,

delicate as a mourning veil.

A green finch dances between the bird feeders. I can’t breathe, my eyes water. My friend can’t breathe, either.

She’s lost her son to an I.E.D. No details yet. Routine patrol around a dusty village far away.

Tea waits on the table between us, and two blueberry scones.Impossible, of course, to talk about loneliness

or changing our lives. Rain today, then a cooling.In a week or so, dogwoods flowering along the back fence.

After that, maple sap staining the hoods of our cars.

i. Our hearts break to let us know love. Write yours.

ii. Write about something little, insignificant. Describe its beauty.

iii. Write about a time everything changed in the blink of an eye.

iv. In what ways are you selfish? Afraid? Strong?

v. Write about a time that you felt different.

vi. Where I’m from (I am from _____, I am from _____, I am from _____)

vii. Dear _____, if you exist

viii. Locate a smell or bring one to memory and write.

ix. Be inspired by the energy of weather. Write outwards from the elements.

x. Write about the sweetest weekend.

xi. Write freedom.