Wandering Words prompts for adults
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This resource includes a warm up prompt, followed by 3 prompts responding to poems by Kim Moore, Philip Larkin, and Liz Berry.
Prompt 1: Warm Up
Think of some words or phrases that come to mind when you think about your home community.
Write down a list of houses, buildings, streets, businesses, parks or other places that mean something special to you.
Pick one of the spaces mentioned in the previous point and write a specific recollection connected to it.
Prompt 2: My People
by Kim Moore, from The Art of Falling (Seren Books) and published on poetryinternational.com
This is a poem about roots and belonging, via family and ancestors. How does this differ from the kind of belonging you feel for a place?
How does the final image of the poem, picturing the family’s women as wolves, work in conjunction with the down-to-earth tone of the rest of the poem?
Try writing about your own people, who could be family, ancestors or the people you have chosen to belong to.
Prompt 3: Here
by Philip Larkin, from The Whitsun Weddings (Faber) and published on poetryverse.com
How does the description of a journey to arrive ‘here’ enhance the sense of place?
Try writing about Shipley from the point of view of a journey to the town OR
Try to write about the people you know locally, encompassing as many as possible. Try to characterise the people you write about without caricaturing them.
Prompt 4: Homing
by Liz Berry, from Black Country (Chatto and Windus) and published on poetrybyheart.org.uk
Consider how the images of industry and of pastimes like keeping pigeons characterise the place the poet writes about (the West Midlands / Black Country) as much as the accent evoked.
Has your accent changed over time, either deliberately or by a gradual, unconscious process? How do you feel about this? What have you gained or lost by changing your accent (or by keeping it the same)?
Write about accent in conjunction with some of the other characteristics of place. Try to evoke the place through its accent.
