Writing Prompt & Reading List

What's in a name?

If you’re the color of sulfur and growing at the roadside, you’re goldenrod.

Hi, Friend.

Today I wanted to share a writing prompt and reading list about the power of naming, and also both the dangers and fruitful possibilities of misnaming or misunderstanding. I think-slash-hope this will help you write a new poem or two, or crack open something for an essay. (It worked for me! While discussing naming in nature poems for a workshop in the spring, I started a couple new pieces of my own.)

Along with a writing prompt and some ideas for how you might flesh out the draft, we’ll look at a couple of poems, and I’ll link to some others I admire. Poems are such good teachers; they give us new ideas and approaches, and show us craft moves we might try out in our own work.