Day 7 - 12

Pick one prompt from your week. What was your process in coming up with this prompt?

(Prompt 12: The Strawberry Prompt) 

Since this prompt included copies of Elsewhere, the Cosmos Cracks as prizes, I wanted to relate the prompt to my process of writing the book, which involved repairing my disattunement to the natural world in the context of Singapore’s urban landscape as a method of seeking wonder in the everyday amidst the climate crisis. One of the texts I frequently returned to was Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass; the quote in the prompt comes from an early chapter, “The Gift of Strawberries”, which inspired me to reflect on what plants I was raised by. Several poems in Elsewhere, including “On Casuarinas” and “On Sugarcanes”, began with these reflections on the natural world that I did grow up with, whether I was conscious about them or not at the time. 

To invite a wider scope of responses, I expanded the prompt from plants/animals to “nonhuman beings”. Since writing about the natural world can feel out of reach for those of us who feel like we don’t know much about the environment, I wanted the bonuses to encourage leaning into this position of “not-knowing”, whether by seeking out the unfamiliar (#touchgrassbonus), using this “not-knowing” as a starting point towards knowledge (#notabotanistbonus), or reframing what knowledge even means to begin with (#expertbonus). After all, I couldn’t tell you much scientifically about the casuarina, but I have stories about kicking the fruit around as a kid and collecting their dried leaves to use as kindling! 

What were you looking out for and the kind of poems you were expecting?

I expected poems on pets and community cats, who are often the first nonhuman beings we learn to consider as important parts of our communities. Also, perhaps pieces on fruits/vegetables integral to our traditions and everyday rituals.

Can you share 1-2 poems that surprised you and why?

The first that comes to mind is Jack Xi’s The Triangle, which I would describe as a jumpscare, though to explain why would unfortunately give the poem away! I was also surprised by how the poem unfolds, revealing the chosen being’s intriguing connection towards something historical and much more immense in scale.

Another poem is yujia21’s My Father’s Reading List. Due to the prompt’s capacious definition of “nonhuman being”, the prompt implicitly demands that poems convince readers that their chosen subjects count as nonhuman beings, especially if they are about inanimate objects. In the case of yujia21’s poem, I was struck by how the list in this moving piece felt truly alive, as it grows with and is meticulously nurtured by the speaker’s father—and later on, the speaker—through different stages in life.

Select 1-2 poems responding to your favourite prompt. Were there any lines/poems you wished you had written yourself?

Kendrick Loo’s Songkran (Day 11’s The Subterranean Prompt) 

I love so many things about this piece, right from the declarative first line to the way it revisits these opening sentiments at the poem’s end. A few months on from SPWM, I still think about the three lines that begin with “A man with a bull's back and black ink” which feel so vivid and tender despite the sentence’s deceptively simple construction. And that turn after the second line break, which is precisely why I will not quote the lines in full here—if only I could read that for the first time all over again! 

“A man with a bull's back and black ink / on his forearm catches me by my belly, wrapping / a question around my waist.”