Comments on: read write prompt #91: the self as memory, or vice versa, by celebrity guest poet joseph o. legaspi

By: Christina Hile

Christina Hile — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:38:52 +0000

My response to Joseph's prompt.

By: Joyce Ellen Davis

Joyce Ellen Davis — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:13:57 +0000

Strange how some of the things I wanted to remember were actually someone else’s memories (my grandmother’s).

By: January Gill O\'Neil

January Gill O\'Neil — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:34:53 +0000

Nice prompt, Joseph. “I believe every life is worth mythologizing.” So very true. I’m off to try this exercise now.

XOXO

By: Deb Scott

Deb Scott — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:46:15 +0000

I've only written to the first half. It's On the Bay of Three Sister Saints off the Yucatan Peninsula, January 2000. It's meaningful to me, but I'm not sure I've jumped as far into the salty waves as I want to. Will continue with this delightful prompt.

By: vice versa: the self as memory | Stoney Moss

vice versa: the self as memory | Stoney Moss — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:42:13 +0000

[...] response to the first half of Joseph O. Legaspi’s prompt this week at Read Write Poem. To see what others have done, go [...]

By: Jeeves

Jeeves — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:25:05 +0000

http://poemsotherwise.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-day.html

By: Wayne Pitchko

Wayne Pitchko — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:38:34 +0000

HONESTY also…holy crap

By: Wayne Pitchko

Wayne Pitchko — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:36:59 +0000

MEMORY…whats that? This old poet has to remember something…forget it then remember it again…and concentrate also…..YIKES. This is getting very difficult.

By: juliejordanscott

juliejordanscott — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:31:33 +0000

I am adoring this prompt. I appreciate the devotion it requires and appreciate even more the request to take more than one swipe at this (a couple drafts expected… hooray – more reflection!)

I read it, didn’t even start working on it, when it was first posted. Now I am back and beginning the work on the first draft.

Lush, rich and grateful here in Bakersfield today.

By: Rallentanda

Rallentanda — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:03:24 +0000

I can usually tumble out frolicking rollicking
poems fairly effortlessly..not this time.Dealing with a semi serious autobiographical exposee has been a struggle to write and not taken the usual twenty minutes. This is my first and last.In future I will as expected use humour riot and flippancy as masks to dodge and weave behind…much more comfortable with this.

By: Dana Guthrie Martin

Dana Guthrie Martin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 03:02:47 +0000

Very well-stated. And memories, if they are cruddy ones, can be pathways through shards of glass — which you can tumble and dull through reframing. (Which I know isn’t Joseph’s point. I am just saying.)

By: Damian

Damian — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:14:43 +0000

Memories are pathways through grass: The more well-worn the track, the easier it is to find your way, and the if we never think of sometime, we’ll never be able to find the path without a guide.

By: angie werren

angie werren — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:37:50 +0000

oh, my–but that reactionary, oppositionally-defiant part of me took one look at this and started screaming.

my first try has turned into an archaeopteryx.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:21:02 +0000

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Nubia.

“to create the narrative of a piece of myself that is exaggerated within a fictional self through writing” — yes, exactly.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:18:16 +0000

Joseph, I know what you mean. I wouldn’t be able to write if I thought I had to follow a prompt to the letter.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:16:29 +0000

The smears are always my favorite part, Barbara.

By: nubia bint aqeel

nubia bint aqeel — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:45:53 +0000

i really like this prompt. it’s very different but very similar to how i usually write. different because i never write about myself directly or use my memories or “real life” experiences in my writing. but similar because i do understand the idea of interpreting or altering memories or making up completely new ones to create the narrative of a piece of myself that is exaggerated within a fictional self through writing.

By: Joseph Harker

Joseph Harker — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:56:11 +0000

He does say, though, that these are just meant to be drafts. I had the same kind of problem until I stopped trying to do exactly what was prompted, and just let them be guidelines, a springboard. Guess it ended up pretty far away from the exact rules in the end, but the result was still better than if I had tried to include everything that flowed from these images/lists.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:41:07 +0000

I keep messing this one up, like a kid who’s written “what I did this summer” instead of a book report, and I wonder if you’ll notice the smears and the thin place where I keep erasing the title, trying to make it match.

By: Donna Vorreyer

Donna Vorreyer — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:22:53 +0000

I love this prompt. It is at the heart of what poets do, take something from life or memory and give it a new shape that is somehow true, even if it isn’t.