A collection of thought-provoking writing & generative prompts provided by featured guests Derrick Austin and others, of CAAPP's The Craft of Blackness.
Derrick Austin
Spend time looking at a painting that surprises you. Not necessarily your favorite painting or even one by an artist you like but one that catches you off guard. If you’re able, try doing this in a museum or arts space with your notebook. Or visit a museum website and look at some high quality images. Spend 15-20 minutes looking at this painting. In your notebook write down what surprises you. What catches your eye. Is it a figure? What about them: their appearance, how they’re painted, the narrative they’re in or suggest? Allow your eye to wander. Again jot down what surprises you, entrances you, befuddles you. Spend some time writing descriptions of the painting. Look closely. Remember a tree isn’t just green or necessarily green at all. What colors are in a cloud? In a figure’s hair? Are the brushstrokes smooth and unnoticeable or are they prominent? What do they imply about the energy of the painter or painting? As you look, allow your mind to wander. What comes up as you look at this painting? Are you thinking of work? Are you thinking of friends? What mood are you in? Does the painting awaken a memory? Do you want to write a narrative about the painting? Jot all of this down in your notebook. After 15-20 minutes, you should have enough written material to write a first draft of an ekphrastic poem. Remember an exciting ekphrastic poem isn’t merely description broken into line breaks, it’s about your encounter with a piece of art. (With modifications you can try this exercise with any kind of art, sculpture, dance, music, video games, etc.) Where does it take you? Where do you take it? Surprise the reader. Surprise yourself.
Major Jackson
Jacksonian Ancestral Dream Project
This exercise, born from a moment that led to several lines in my poem “Double Major,” forces us to go beyond our lives and to enter the inner life and groundscape of our lineage. Study a picture of a grandparent, even great grandparent, or any beloved family member important to you. Describe what they are wearing without looking away from the photograph. What is the occasion for the picture, i.e., wedding, graduation, holiday? Give details of place, that is, where the picture was taken, i.e., in a studio, on a porch, or on a city street? Who else is in the picture? What is their relationship to your distant relative? How would you describe their eyes, their general mood. Now, close your eyes and attempt to imagine what they might have dreamt the evening the photograph was taken?
jzl jmz
Torusonnet: a new Black form
I think less of the poem as body & rather as a constellation. The poetic is a kind a sky reading. Making shape & figure by what hangs impossibly out of reach. The Black poetic is kind of astronomy. A study of what hangs in darkness. Black poets have been rupturing & remixing form since we entered visible canons. While not set out to break intentionally new ground I was curious what constraints & expectations could prove as a challenge. Astronomers say the universe is rotating in on itself. The rough shape is mathematically known as a torus. this fluid, three-dimensional shape is, simply, a donut rotating in three directions at all times. Referencing the traditional use of meter in sonnet forms & the considerations of line count I use this proportional relationship to create a malleable new form locked only by these parameters & little else.
The Torusonnet:
X = # of Stanzas
2X = # of Syllables per line
3X = # of Lines total
For example, if you were to use a line from a traditional Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter), the torusonnet would be 5 stanzas long & 15 lines total (because each line would have 10 syllables).