Writing Prompts: Spring 2020 Edition

Image by Knud Erik Vinding

Image by cromaconceptovisual

First, a Mentor Poem  

We have written summer and fall vignettes, and about walks in winter.  It is only fitting to address our current spring.  It has come.  Amidst everything, it is here. Can we hold the duality of -- what spring usually means for us with what is happening in the pandemic of 2020?

The following poem blends the mention of a spring season and a key life event. 

First Writing Prompt:

What happened in a Spring of your memory?  Hold Spring . . . and an event . . . in the same poem.  The event doesn’t have to be traumatic.  Maybe the event juxtaposes the season of Spring.  Maybe it vibes with the season.  Write for 10 minutes.

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Another Set of Mentor Poems 

In the "Courage of Poetry" seminar 2020, David Whyte surmised that if you only suddenly noticed that everything has bloomed, then you have missed the seasonality of spring—the essence of spring. 

So the second poem prompt, switches gears into the archetype of spring.  Of course it's about other things, too -- I mean, isn’t all poetry about something and something else!  Two examples:

Second Writing Prompt:

Write about spring in its archetypal sense. Focus on something specific, and relish the sensory details. Relish the hope of it.
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Something Extra for Study and Discussion

A Cold Spring
By Elizabeth Bishop

The violet was flawed on the lawn.
For two weeks or more the trees hesitated;
the little leaves waited,
carefully indicating their characteristics.
Finally a grave green dust
settled over your big and aimless hills.
One day, in a chill white blast of sunshine,
on the side of one a calf was born.
The mother stopped lowing
and took a long time eating the after-birth,
a wretched flag,
but the calf got up promptly
and seemed inclined to feel gay.

The next day
was much warmer.
Greenish-white dogwood infiltrated the wood,
each petal burned, apparently, by a cigarette-butt;
and the blurred redbud stood
beside it, motionless, but almost more
like movement than any placeable color.
Four deer practiced leaping over your fences.
The infant oak-leaves swung through the sober oak.
Song-sparrows were wound up for the summer,
and in the maple the complementary cardinal
cracked a whip, and the sleeper awoke,
stretching miles of green limbs from the south.
In his cap the lilacs whitened,
then one day they fell like snow.

Now, in the evening,
a new moon comes.
The hills grow softer. Tufts of long grass show
where each cow-flop lies.
The bull-frogs are sounding,
slack strings plucked by heavy thumbs.
Beneath the light, against your white front door,
the smallest moths, like Chinese fans,
flatten themselves, silver and silver-gilt
over pale yellow, orange, or gray.
Now, from the thick grass, the fireflies
begin to rise:
up, then down, then up again:
lit on the ascending flight,
drifting simultaneously to the same height,
–exactly like the bubbles in champagne.
–Later on they rise much higher.
And your shadowy pastures will be able to offer
these particular glowing tributes
every evening now throughout the summer.

Source:  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1952/05/31/a-cold-spring-for-a-friend-in-maryland

The gentle slide from spring to summer while the structure of the poem moves through morning to evening. All of life is in flow, the poem is in flow, our hopes are in flow. 
Tell us about your spring topics in the comment section.  Include a few lines from your poem. Respond to Bishop's poem.  
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