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read write prompt #49: mission, echolalia

by Dana Guthrie Martin

This week’s Read Write Prompt started as a conversation in the comments over on my blog last week. Melissa Fondakowski of Poet with a Day Job said that she appreciated my working the term “glossolalia” into one of my poems and added that using the word “echolalia” in a poem would be even cooler.

I thought it sounded like a fun challenge, too, so I asked her if she’d write up a prompt that we could use here at Read Write Poem. She was all over it. Here’s her prompt:

There’s a lot going on in the world right now: an economic crisis, a pending presidential election, a war, the possibility of a military state, partisanship like we’ve never seen it before and the potential for even more wars, higher taxes and cuts to our basic human services.

Everyone from the candidates, to pundits, to “Joe Bloggers” like you and me are talking about it. Some of us rage, some of us joke, some of us throw our hands up in utter despair, some of us try to make logical sense of it all.

And still some of us just simply make everything more confusing. Remember, language, that nonpartisan gentle giant, can be used for good, and evil. Thankfully poetry tends to lend itself to good.

Poetry makes sense of the world by reminding us of our spiritual, meditative and focused natures. By reminding us what we share in common. By helping us open our hearts to possibility and change. The very act of writing and reading a poem can change the world in just the same way that a butterfly (or moth, for Dana) flapping its wings in South America can send a tropical storm northward the following year. Poetry is language at its most auspicious: true, beautiful and transformative.

So in honor of the confusing speech of this time, in honor of repetitive talking points, in honor of verbal nonsense, in honor of lies and not-quite truths, in honor of “straight-talk” (which seems neither straight nor talk — discuss) and especially in honor of 50-cent verbiages, I present to you your poetry mission: Write a poem that somehow hinges on the word echolalia. Perhaps it can be the title of your poem, or the literal center point, or maybe just the crux, or pivot. Whatever you do with it, let’s work together to put meaning back into our words — let’s take our language back through poetry!

This is the Wikipedia definition of echolalia: the repetition of vocalizations made by another person. Echolalia can be present in autism, Tourette syndrome, aphasia, Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, developmental disability, schizophrenia, Asperger syndrome and, occasionally, other forms of psychopathology. When done involuntarily, it is considered a tic. The word “echolalia” is derived from the Greek meaning “echo” or “to repeat” and “babbling, meaningless talk.”

Have fun y’all.

Everyone thank Melissa for this great prompt. Now get out there and get your poetry tic on.

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Posted by Dana Guthrie Martin under Dana Guthrie Martin, Read Write Prompt

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