Self Portrait as...

#selfportraitas #poetry15

Well, well, well. For the first time in the history of Poetry 15, I am sending you your prompt on (drumroll please…) November 16th. A day late! The whole concept of this Substack is that you’ll receive a prompt on the 15th. And now you have not! What does this mean for the conceit behind this project? What does this mean for the promise that on a certain day each month, you’ll receive a new prompt? And what is my excuse?

I hate to say it, but I was not having a crisis yesterday. I thought at length about your prompt, worked on it, but simply did not do it. In the midst of a slew of mundane tasks, none of which involve drama, intrigue, or anything racy, I simply forgot to post it. I kind of hate the saying, “Life got in the way.” What does that even mean? Maybe that’s what happened here. In the midst of all of the dread (immigration raids, SNAP benefits dissolving, a foreboding sense of doom around totalitarian governance, the prevalence of AI, and more), how are we even going about our days? How are we writing?

I don’t have answers to these questions. But I do know that the world needs your poetry. Your poetry, not AI’s poetry. This month’s prompt is in part inspired by David Hernandez’s recent poem in Poetry, “Self-Portrait n Granulated Sugar.” I invite you to self-reflect on what you bring, as a person, artist, and construct, to an idea, object, or occasion. You can be magical in your thinking. You can stretch reality. You can look closely at something tiny, like a grain of sugar. You can conceptualize something huge, like the planet Jupiter.

There is no limit to what your poem can do in thinking about the “you” that you are making. It is uniquely yours.