This is the sound track of my kitchen in Houston, c. 2008 or so. I’m learning to caramelize onions, and the ceiling fan is on high, because even though we’ve got pretty good air conditioning for an old building, it never really reaches into the kitchen, which gets steamy in the Texas heat when I cook. The music is playing through a set of tinny speakers connected to my iPod Shuffle. There’s a whole world inside this song.
What songs send you back? For this prompt, you’ll need to find a song or album that fixed you in a former part of your life - ideally, far enough back that your life was very different than it is now.
Prompt #26: All This Beauty
Pick a song or album that’s closely linked to a previous version of your life - a song that always reminds you of a particular summer, or a particular boy, or a particular spot. The idea here is to start with something you haven’t listened to in a while, so you might want to poke around a bit. Search for music from that year, look back through old playlists if you can.
Listen to that song or album. Where are you? What’s the weather? Who’s with you? You could use this memory or moment as the start of a spiral, if the Lynda Barry freewriting has been helpful for you. (The video is below; you can read more about this approach to freewriting in Prompt #6.)
If a form is helpful for you, pick five or so words from one of the songs and use them as end words.
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.