read write prompt #13: no pain, no gain (sacrifice in poetry)

by Blythe

Today marks the beginning of Lent for Christians around the world. It is a forty-day season of fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter.

I was raised in a family that did not take much notice of Lent; I associate this time of year with various fish promotions at the local fast food joints. (Even though I’ve chosen to participate in Lent a few times in more recent years, the season still evokes for me the cool gray afternoons of my pre-teen years enlivened by a fish filet sandwich from Burger King.)

My reminiscences of Lenten seasons past have led me to this week’s prompt suggestion: sacrifice.

There are countless ways to take on the subject – religion and spirituality need not be involved. Maybe there is a person whose sacrifice surprised, impressed, or saddened you. Maybe (like Edna St. Vincent Millay in her infamous “First Fig“) you can focus on what we choose to sacrifice to have the life we desire. Or you could write about what we sacrifice unknowingly, or, like Donne in “Love’s Diet,” you could take a look at the self-imposed sacrifices we often make in love.

Then there are the sacrifices of ancient cultures, altruistic behavior in the animal kingdom, the sacrifices we wish we could take back, and the sacrificial hit in baseball (props to anyone who can come up with a decent sports poem).

You may also want to consider taking some tips from those who practice the purposeful sacrifice of Lenten fasting and consider some change to your poetry routine.

I read a great article a few months ago about a gifted and prolific photographer who decided to limit himself to taking one photograph a day for a year, and he had great things to say about how much that artistic “fasting” changed his perspective. He felt that those were some of his richest, best-planned photographs, and that the experience changed the way he went about looking for and setting up shots, even after the year was over.

Perhaps, if you’re like me, you need to sacrifice something else (Project Runway and HGTV be damned!) in order to give more time to poetry.

Tips for collaborating:

• Find a partner, and give each other fasting-related writing assignments. For example, try not to use any adjectives (in speech or writing) one day.
• Keep a list of the ones you are tempted to use. Write about those words or the experience.
• Come up with other “abstinence” assignments for each other.

Whatever sacrifice you make this week, come back next Monday and share the second week of Lent with the poets who make Read Write Poem a part of their writing practice.