Today’s prompt is inspired by Jane Kenyon’s beautiful poem “Otherwise,” which begins
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
It’s really worth clicking through to read the whole thing, which I didn’t think I should reproduce in full here.
I love that Jane Kenyon poem for its attention to the stuff or ordinary life and the awareness that all of it might have been, as she says, otherwise. For today’s prompt, you’ll write a response to another poem of yours with this idea of the tenuousness of everyday life in mind.
Prompt #25: Perhaps
Find an earlier poem - perhaps one you wrote earlier this month, perhaps one that’s earlier than that - that you think you can respond to.
Begin your poem by selecting a scene or an image from the previous poem and then commenting, as Jane Kenyon, does, that “it might have been otherwise.” What would that “otherwise” have entailed? Write into this new alternate reality.
If a form helps you, use Kenyon’s slender lines - four or five syllables each, the lines often quite enjambed.
Sharing your work helps sustain momentum. I’ll leave the comments open, so you can share a poem title, a snippet of a line, or something else about your writing life. I’m also on twitter (@nancy_reddy) and instagram (@nancy.o.reddy), if you want to check in there.