Writing Prompts for Summer Solstice

Image by Colossal Bean

5 Minute Warm Up Writes

1. At the Summer Solstice the sun reaches its peak. What peaks have you reached this year?  This is a powerful time to mark those peaks you've climbed and the mountains you've faced in the last year. Take some time to reflect on what you have achieved, the challenges you've overcome, and what you have created - no matter how small it may seem. Celebrate and acknowledge your journey to where you are today. (Prompt courtesy of The Embody Lab)

2. Shine a little more brightly.  As we stand a little closer to the sun today contemplate how you can shine a little more brightly in the world. Perhaps it's in acts of service to others, perhaps it taking those first courageous steps towards a lighter, brighter space. Where is your light being dimmed and how can you change that? Reflect on actions you can take to spread a little more light and warmth into the world.  ​(Prompt courtesy of The Embody Lab)

Mentor Poem

The House at Long Lake
PHILIP METRES 
 
How a house is a self
     & else, a seeping into
of light deciding the day.
     A house so close

it breathes as the lake
     breathes. How a lake
is a shelf, an eye,
     a species of seeing,

burbling of tongues
     completing the shore.
How a loon is a probing,
     a genus of dreams,

encyclopedia of summer.
     Unsummable house
by the lake, generous hinge
     opening us. I loved,

in folds of sleep, to hear
     the back door’s yawn
& click. You gliding
     down toward shore

​& dawn, beyond all frames,
     reconciling yourself to
bracing Long Lake.
     Into its ever-opening, you--
 
Source: Copyright © 2018 Philip Metres. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in Tin House, Summer 2018.

Writing Prompts

• In stanza four is the phrase "encyclopedia of summer."  This poem seems to touch on many subjects of the lake house: the light, the lake, a loon, and "you" . . . gliding down to the water.  Write your own personal “encyclopedia of summer."   (In case it informs the form your poem might take, an encyclopedia gives information on many subjects or many aspects of one subject, and is typically arranged alphabetically.)
  
• This poem also uses powerful metaphors: the house is a self, the lake is a shelf, the loon a probing.  Look at your "encyclopedia writing" and see where powerful metaphors can be made to the benefit of the poem.

​

For Discussion

Academy of American Poets · Danez Smith: "in lieu of a poem, i'd like to say"

​in lieu of a poem, i'd like to say
DANEZ SMITH                                                  
 
apricots & brown teeth in browner mouths nashing dates & a clementine’s underflesh under yellow nail & dates like auntie heads & the first time someone dried mango there was god & grandma’s Sunday only song & how the plums are better as plums dammit & i was wrong & a June’s worth of moons & the kiss stain of the berries & lord the prunes & the miracle of other people’s lives & none of my business & our hands sticky and a good empty & please please pass the bowl around again & the question of dried or ripe & the sex of grapes & too many dates & us us us us us & varied are the feast but so same the sound of love gorged & the women in the Y hijab a lily in the water & all of us who come from people who signed with x’s & yesterday made delicacy in the wrinkle of the fruit & at the end of my name begins the lot of us
​
Source: Copyright © 2019 by Danez Smith. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 29, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.

Closing Writing Prompt

Academy of American Poets · Aimee Nezhukumatathil: "Summer Haibun"

Summer Haibun
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL

To everything, there is a season of parrots. Instead of feathers, we searched the sky for meteors on our last night.  Salamanders use the stars to find their way home. Who knew they could see that far, fix the tiny beads of their eyes on distant arrangements of lights so as to return to wet and wild nests? Our heads tilt up and up and we are careful to never look at each other. You were born on a day of peaches splitting from so much rain and the slick smell of fresh tar and asphalt pushed over a cracked parking lot. You were strong enough—even as a baby—to clutch a fistful of thistle and the sun himself was proud to light up your teeth when they first swelled and pushed up from your gums. And this is how I will always remember you when we are covered up again: by the pale mica flecks on your shoulders. Some thrown there from your own smile. Some from my own teeth. There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air
​
the cool night before
star showers: so sticky so
warm so full of light
 
Source: Copyright © 2017 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 7, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

Learn about the poetic form of a HAIBUN

• Haibun is a poetry form that combines a haiku with a prose poem. Haibun prose is usually descriptive. It uses sparse, poetic imagery to evoke a sensory impression in the reader. The section of prose is then followed by a haiku that serves to deepen the meaning of the prose, either by intensifying its themes or serving as a juxtaposition to the prose’s content.
• Learn More:   How to write a haibun and  4 tips for writing a haibun
• Try the beginning steps of haibun by (a) revisiting any of today's writing, (b) revising it into prose poetry (c) adding a haiku at the end.

Share your experience with these writing prompts by clicking "Comments" below.