Writing the Weird
Angels: Two Creative Writing Prompts
PROMPT #1: “No ideas but in things.” — William Carlos Williams
Before reading George Saunders’ flash fiction “Sticks,” make a list of 5-10 objects you see in your neighborhood. These could also be people, animals, or the natural world.
STICKS
By: George Saunders
Every year Thanksgiving night we flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa suit to the road and draped it over a kind of crucifix he'd built out of metal pole in the yard. Super Bowl week the pole was dressed in a jersey and Rod's helmet and Rod had to clear it with Dad if he wanted to take the helmet off. On the Fourth of July the pole was Uncle Sam, on Veteran’s Day a soldier, on Halloween a ghost. The pole was Dad's only concession to glee. We were allowed a single Crayola from the box at a time. One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Kimmie for wasting an apple slice. He hovered over us as we poured ketchup saying: good enough good enough good enough. Birthday parties consisted of cupcakes, no ice cream. The first time I brought a date over she said: what's with your dad and that pole? and I sat there blinking.
We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us. Dad began dressing the pole with more complexity and less discernible logic. He draped some kind of fur over it on Groundhog Day and lugged out a floodlight to ensure a shadow. When an earthquake struck Chile he lay the pole on its side and spray painted a rift in the earth. Mom died and he dressed the pole as Death and hung from the crossbar photos of Mom as a baby. We'd stop by and find odd talismans from his youth arranged around the base: army medals, theater tickets, old sweatshirts, tubes of Mom's makeup. One autumn he painted the pole bright yellow. He covered it with cotton swabs that winter for warmth and provided offspring by hammering in six crossed sticks around the yard. He ran lengths of string between the pole and the sticks, and taped to the string letters of apology, admissions of error, pleas for understanding, all written in a frantic hand on index cards. He painted a sign saying LOVE and hung it from the pole and another that said FORGIVE? and then he died in the hall with the radio on and we sold the house to a young couple who yanked out the pole and the sticks and left them by the road on garbage day.
Choose one of the objects on your list, and write about how a specific person interacts or changes the item over a period of time, such as the four seasons, or different holidays.
PROMPT TWO: CREATIVE CONSTRAINT
ANGELS
By: Russell Edson
They have little use. They are best as objects of torment.
No government cares what you do with them.
Like birds, and yet so human . . .
They mate by briefly looking at the other.
Their eggs are like white jellybeans.
Sometimes they have been said to inspire a man to do more with his life than he might have.
But what is there for a man to do with his life?
. . . They burn beautifully with a blue flame.
When they cry out it is like the screech of a tiny hinge; the cry of a bat. No one hears it . . .
While the first prompt is open-ended, this prompt relies on formal constraint. The first restraint is to limit your poem to 10 lines. Aim to defamiliarize a familiar object or concept.
Further constraints:
At least 5 of the lines should be a concrete image. In other words, use one or more of the 5 senses: smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight.
Use alliteration at least once.
Example: They burn beautifully with a blue flame.
Use two colors. Edson uses white and blue.
Include one animal. Edson uses a bat, an unsentimental and surprising choice.
Use at least one slant rhyme internally (within the poem, not at the end)
Examples:
Government/torment
Mate/white/out/bat/it
Include one question:
Example: But what is there for a man to do with his life?
Use at least one metaphor or simile.
Examples:
Their eggs are white like jellybeans
When they cry out it is like the screech of a tiny hinge; the cry of a bat.
When you work with formal constraints, you may be forced out of habitual ways of thinking into the new and strange.
You're brilliant.