Writing Prompts: The ''How To'' Poem

Prompt 1

Make a list of:
1—Things people have said to you beginning with the phrase, “This is how you---”  
2--Add to the list with accusations or words of advice that you’ve heard repeatedly in your life
3--Keep adding to the list with what people closest to you say when they are mad at you
4--What is something people say to you that you strongly disagree with
5--What are things people said that caused you pain? Caused you good feelings?
(Write for 10 minutes)
 

Prompt 2

Using details from the first prompt, write a “how to” poem—how to do something in life that’s hard to do.  How to be you when you were a kid.  How to be something now.  To whom is the speaker directing the poem?  What is the overall tone? Let the tone change if it wants to. Think about rhythm or pacing in your poem.  (Write for 10 minutes)

Example Poems

The example poems take a different form this week -- one spoken word, then put to video, and finally a book.  The second in flash fiction form.  Studying both pieces led to a discussion on how to achieve rhythm or pacing in writing -- see suggestions in a following post. 

How to Be Alone by Tanya Davis
A spoken work piece, illustrated and filmed by Andrea Dorfman. Purchase the audio track here.

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
In this video clip, Kincaid is reading at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Full text of the story is below the videos. 

Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil; soak your little cloths right after you take them off; when buying cotton to make yourself a nice blouse, be sure that it doesn’t have gum in it, because that way it won’t hold up well after a wash; soak salt fish overnight before you cook it; is it true that you sing benna in Sunday school?; always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach; on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming; don’t sing benna in Sunday school; you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street—flies will follow you; but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school; this is how to sew on a button; this is how to make a buttonhole for the button you have just sewed on; this is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming; this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease; this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease; this is how you grow okra—far from the house, because okra tree harbors red ants; when you are growing dasheen, make sure it gets plenty of water or else it makes your throat itch when you are eating it; this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all; this is how you smile to someone you like completely; this is how you set a table for tea; this is how you set a table for dinner; this is how you set a table for dinner with an important guest; this is how you set a table for lunch; this is how you set a table for breakfast; this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming; be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don’t squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don’t pick people’s flowers—you might catch something; don’t throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad won’t fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn’t fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won’t let near the bread?
 
Published in the print edition of the June 26, 1978, New Yorker issue.