Writing Prompts: Time Passing

Free Write Prompt

Tell me about time passing. What images do you associate with time passing – things growing or things receding? How do you measure time’s passing? What do you do with your time?  Write for 10 minutes.  Ready? Go.

Poem Prompt

Write a poem wherein the reader witnesses time pass. Allow the images and objects from your free write as well as the abstract things about time passing each be poetic elements in the poem. (OR) Relay a cycle of time and what happens within the cycle. (OR) Write a poem about this day.

Example Poems

1. "anyone lived in a pretty how town" ​by E. E. Cummings​
2. "Vines" by Kaveh Akbar​​

Reflections on "anyone lived in a pretty how town"

• The use of the pronouns "everyone," "anyone," "someone," and "noone" let the reader know that we will all be included in the chaotic experiences of life the poem will explore in the "pretty how town."  And if you read the poem as if the pronouns are characters, you witness a love story -- a seemingly random meeting of two, a marriage, and a passing, wherein "noone" cries at "anyone's" death.  But, if you read the pronouns as simply pronouns, another statement is made about the futility of life, because, when anyone dies, noone cries for it.  This play on the meaning of the word and the actual function of a pronoun allow the poet to carry multiple meanings when he strategically places them in the lines of the poem.  
• The duality of life, the ying and the yang of life's experience in "pretty how town" is present in the dichotomies of sowing and reaping, joy and grief, men and women, up and down.  In the stir and the still and in the did and the didn't.  But  harmony is also present in life through such phrases as "all by all" and "deep by deep" and the "more by more" -- phrases that portend double of something, flowing forth and multiplying -- not the opposing nature of things.  Hey, it's what we know of life.  In these provocatively chosen and arranged words, we experience the chaos, the duality, and the harmony of life but in a pleasing way.  The structure of a rhyme scheme, the measured lines, the equally measured stanzas, a few more sound devices, and the sing-song pacing, each lend the up and down of life some stability. The chaos of a life span in a pretty how town is made slightly more tidy, and lovely, and agreeable to us, the readers.  Listen to E. E. Cummings read this poem to further appreciate the simple "sing-song" effect of the phrasing and the rhyme.
• ​The cycle of life is literal and implied in the poem. The references to the four seasons are a literal cycle. But the directions of movement in the poem up and down and side to side, are also players in meaning. As bells move from side to side to "dong and ding," the sound seems to float up and down. And children, "down they forgot as up they grew"!  It seems we are always moving in all directions, and eventually, as "anyone" shows,  into the ground at death. ​

• ​But don't lament, "everyone!" There are lots of "didn'ts" to sing and "dids" to dance, and  "isn'ts" to sow and "sames" to reap!  It is life in a "pretty how town," afterall.  Have at it, my friends!​​

Something Extra

The 25-day time lapse of the bean, gives unique context to the invading "vines" by Akbar!

This 30-day travel at sea time-lapse is a meditative way to appreciate the passing of time.

What thoughts, feelings, ideas are prompted by these videos?  What words or phrases do you attach to time lapse photography?  How could the point of view filming at sea create a speaker in the poem?  Write some more.  And feel free to share some lines in the comment section.