Poetry Writing Prompts: Calling the Spirit Back

Sample Poem #1

Poetry Prompt #1

Write a poem about your inner spirit.  Maybe you will make it concise in three stanzas, featuring three separate images. Or choose a form that more readily suits your spirit.  Write for 10 minutes. Ready, set, go!
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Sample Poem #2

Poetry Prompt #2

Write a poem about the spirit of a place.  Start with description of the place and move to what you recognize as the “spirit” of the place or the same spirit in yourself. Write for 10 minutes.  Ready, set, go.

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Something Extra

​For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Joy Harjo
 
Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that
bottle of pop.
Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth
gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars’ ears and
back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were
a dream planting itself precisely within your parents’ desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the
guardians who have known you before time, who will be
there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there
without time.

Let the earth stabilize your postcolonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people
who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought
down upon them.

Don’t worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises,
interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and
those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few
years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and
leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the
thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning
by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders,
your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your
ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our
direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take
many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or
ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and
creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return
in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be
happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and
given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who
loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no
place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way
through the dark.
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Source: https://poets.org/poem/calling-spirit-back-wandering-earth-its-human-feet

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For Prompt #2, PoetryBones writers
​recalled spirit in these places:  ​

• inside the studio's golden circle
• nature at the edges of suburbia
• the wandering creek that flooded
• Buddha Beach
• Rainbow Falls

• ​university's libraries
• the woods and pond
• Ebony Forest
• Council Overhang
• an artist friend's place
• where I am right now

Where is the place you recalled spirit? 
​Leave us a note in the comments section.
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