"I began with my own soft but tense body to seek words"
an unlocking prompt from Kimiko Hahn's The Narrow Road to the Interior
Welcome to Be Where You Are. I’m a writer & teacher exploring meditation & mindfulness & the in-between spaces that are awkward, beautiful & kind of magic. If you enjoy this newsletter, if you look forward to it in your inbox, please consider paying a few dollars a month for a subscription to help me keep it going. And, if you can’t pay anything, please share it with someone that you think might need it! 🩵
Have you been wanting to start writing and creating again but every time you sit down to write or draw, all that comes out is fumes, so you reach for your phone, or someone yells out for a snack and then that’s it, you’re done? Today, I want to share a prompt that’s helpful for getting going again after a pause, even if it’s just a pause of a day or two in which you did 1000 logistical things and don’t even remember your own name.
I talked about this prompt with in an interview for The Long Pause back in December. This prompt is based on a structure I gleaned from Kimiko Hahn’s remarkable book of poems, The Narrow Road to the Interior (2006). Hahn’s book primarily uses the Japanese form zuihitsu, a prose-poetry form that literally translates to “running brush.” If you’re curious about this form, Hahn writes about the zuihitsu in “The Zuihitsu and the Toadstool” at American Poetry Review. I recommend this essay as a starting place for learning about the form, as well as simply reading this book, which helps you to see the zuihitsu—its range and complexity—in action.
I think of this prompt as an “unlocking” prompt. It was one of the key forces that helped me slowly and steadily come out of my long pause and get in touch with my creative mind again. To fall in love with images and sound and the presence it takes to see and hear in a deeper way. Just this morning, I used this prompt again while my family members were still asleep and the world was dark, and, this seemingly simple structure worked its magic to bring me a few lines I want to follow.
PROMPT
Write down today’s date. Maybe add where you are, too (your town or street, where you are in your home)
For a few minutes, write whatever comes into your mind—continuous writing—keep your hand moving and breathe, and/or describe what you see around you with specific detail.
Then, read a bit and quote something from your reading that resonates or vibrates for you in some way. If you don’t have any books around you now and don’t want to deal with the vortex of the internet, here are a few excerpts from poems I love:
“In the tidal pool a half dozen hermit crabs scuffle over an empty shell which the largest wins but cannot fit into. That.” —Kimiko Hahn from “Wellfleet, Midsummer” (from The Narrow Road to the Interior) (note: this is a tanka) “I think sometimes, you just have to say, okay - even if you don’t understand. Sometimes, let the world of flames speak for itself. Let the radiant life shine” —Jan Beatty from “Psych Intake w/Flames” (from Dragstripping) “Listen to me. I am telling you a true thing. This is the only kingdom. The kingdom of touching; the touches of the disappearing, things.” —Aracelis Girmay, from “Elegy” (from Kingdom Animalia)
Pose a question or two and see where they take you
The magic of this prompt is that it helps you drop down deeper, below the surface-level logistical brain we spend a lot of our days operating in. For me, it feels like I’m unlocking the door to a space that it’s often hard for me to reach, especially if I only have ten minutes to write in a given day.
Writing continuously at first without a destination clears the channel and starts loosening your mind. Then, engaging with someone else’s language and ideas, and shifting back to your own voice by first posing a question, rather than an “answer” helps you enter the space where you are on your way to writing something resonant. This prompt might take you into writing zuihitsu and exploring this form, but it also might help you discover new threads in your writing that takes you elsewhere formally.
Try this and modify it with what feels right for you. It won’t always deliver a draft, but I find that if I do it for a few days in a row, there’s an accumulative power as I start engaging with what I read or listen to in a new way. I’ll notice that I’m formulating a question as I’m doing the dishes or noticing the light on my daughter’s face in a new way.
You can hear me talk about this prompt with
at The Long Pause at this link at 32:25, and read the rest of the interview about my long creative pause at this link. Also: ONLY POEMS just published some stunning Kimiko Hahn poems and an interview with her. Check it out here, friends.If you try this, I’d love to read anything you’d like to share, either some lines or something about your process. You can leave a comment below with your thoughts… xo
Clicking the heart to “like” this post is a great and free way to support this newsletter. If you read these posts and value this work, please consider a paid subscription at a few dollars a month to help me keep this growing. 🩵🩵
Be Where You Are is a newsletter about how to use writing and mindfulness to live more fully where you are. If you have ideas to share for future newsletters, you can reply to this email. You can also find me on Instagram or Facebook or find more info at my website. Thank you for reading!⚡⚡
Emily, I love this. Kimiko Hahn is one of my favorite poets. I started writing and here is what I came up with:
January 21, Sun Valley, a visit with my brother in law, the sun not yet visible,
a bit of light from snow.
Barbara’s photo popped up on my phone,
she and I holding our first poetry books, she is beautiful,
healthy. In March she will be dead four years (future tense for the past, as if time-travel)
and an article says the earth’s magnetic north pole is shifting from Canada to Siberia
as if I’m not unsteady enough with my grief-memories,
unsure how to articulate. Forrest Gander writes “if upswelling
verb tenses could draw together past and present
into an emotional harmonic”
but harmony is an impossible task these days, eluding
my grasping hands, my desperate heart.
The only constant my ghosts who tiptoe around my thoughts like giggling children,
waiting to catch me unaware.