Friday Writings #169: Answering Writing in Writing

 

 

Hello again, dear Word Weavers.

Have you ever written a poem in reply to someone else’s poem?

I’ve done it now and then with pieces by friends, people with whom I’m already in the habit of conversing about anything and everything. It can feel natural to respond that way to some of their poems too.

Occasionally I’ve done it with much more famous pieces, by poets I’ve never met (who might even be dead already) in which case it’s too one-sided to be called a dialogue. There’s also the consideration that one puts oneself at a disadvantage in attempting to reply to something really great: how can one’s own words possibly measure up? However, it can be  an interesting exercise in elucidating one’s own thoughts. (Sometimes we need to articulate them to discover what they are. Or sometimes we already know, and burn to express them.)

I did it once in answer to a prompt, responding to one of my favourite pieces by e.e. cummings with this – which certainly lacks the genius of cummings, but which I am pleased to have written, nevertheless. 

(I responded not as myself but in the persona of the 'Mister Death' whom cummings's poem addresses. But it's still my own ideas being expressed. Both poems are fictional ... but perhaps not entirely?) 

Recently, while still processing the aftermath of Ex-cyclone Alfred, I found myself spontaneously responding to a post of Rajani’s which featured poems (including one of her own) about rain. This then sparked the idea for today's prompt. My piece is the one I share here this time, and you’ll find there a link to Rajani’s inspirational post as well.

So, for your optional prompt this week, I invite you to write a reply to something someone else wrote: in verse to someone else’s poem, in a piece of prose to someone else’s story-telling – or you may even reply in prose to their poem, or in poetry to their story. Please include in your post a link to the piece you’re responding to.

Guidelines: One post per person, share it via Mister Linky below, 369 words maximum (excluding title and notes), old or new, poetry or prose, on prompt or not. Do please read and comment on others’ efforts, and feel free to talk to the team or each other in the Comments section below.

Advance notice: For next week’s optional prompt, you are invited to find inspiration in the first line of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land: “April is the cruellest month”.

 

By Aaron Burden, on Unsplash