Writing From The Inside Out Week 20 Prompts
Based on “Flames” by Billy Collins
Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts below the poem
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
Flames
Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of matches.
His hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.
The moonlight catches the teeth
of his smile.
His paws, the size of catcher’s mitts,
crackle into the distance.
He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper
the dumbbell hiker.
He’s going to show them
how a professional does it.
No one runs after him
with the famous lecture.
Billy Collins
Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003; and New York State Poet from 2004-2006.
Please join in for Round 5 of Writing From The Inside Out by attending the August 2020 read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (it’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email.
Register Here:
Next Read Around is August 28, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST
My Thoughts
When I first read Billy Collins poem, Flames, it ran as a cartoon in my in my mind. Smoky, fed up, marching gas can and matches into the woods with unwavering determination. Collins paints Smokey with an attitude of feisty indignation fueled by an impulsive, irrepressible flare of spite. The “show them” attitude hints at a justification for an action that he knows is wrong. “Show them” could mean that he will burn the forest down to show them what they could lose from their carelessness. The irony is obvious, but the same thing happens in our everyday lives. What seems a noble intention gets twisted. We mean to say a funny comment, but it comes out hurtful. A hleping hand is received as an insult. We long for intimacy but fear it is too risky to open our heart. A loving intention to protect our children shackles them.
Given all the forest fires raging across California, this poem seemed a good pick for a prompt. On the surface, it is lighthearted, and playful; even cartoonish as I mentioned above. Dig down and you’ll find some real gems, like the fact that our good intentions are thwarted; but also the implication that the best lessons of our ancestors are often ignored, or the failure to be careful In our behavior for the public good; or a glimpse into the vindictiveness in humans. And, as Collin’s points out, sometimes we have to go to an extreme to make a point.
Week 18 Prompt Menu
Bigfoot
Bigfoot came walking out
of the woods with a grocery list.
Almost no one saw him.
All the pictures are grainy
and look doctored.
I think he’s a Jedi Knight
in disguise. I can hear him
in my head: “I am not the
monster you are looking for.“
I get an eerie feeling
he means I have to look
in the mirror for that.
“Your mind tricks
won’t work on me,“
I say, but what I really
want to ask is:
how many unfamiliars
are wandering among us?
Hunchback, troll, elephant man…
if we see them, it is through
our brokenness as beastly shadows.
They walk in the mirrored world,
glimpsed in the corner of the eye
of our reflected self, gradually
moving closer as we grow
old and ugly until we lose
the strength for fight or flight.
Then one day, we make
a grocery list, step out the door,
and no one notices.
© Nick LeForce
Write a poem about fire: different characteristics of fire (fast, slow; raging, crackling, etc). uses of fire; fire as a metaphor; etc.
Write a poem about a time when an action with a good intention backfired.
Collins chooses an iconic image of Smokey The Bear, famous caricature used in the longstanding public education campaign to prevent frest fires, for his poem. Pick a character from myth, fairy tale, or legend and write a poem about the character. For instance, I once wrote a poem about Bigfoot (see right)
What makes the poem Flames so poignant is the contrast between the way Smokey was presented on TV and in ads (Gentle, Fatherly, Caring) and Smokey in the poem (frustrated, fed up, righteous) Write a poem about the two sides of someone.
Write about something that built up in you, or another, (could be positive or negative) until it went over some threshold and had to be expressed.
Collins describes Smokey’s intention to “show them” (get back at them? teach them a lesson?) Write a poem from the stem: “I’m (He’s; She’s) going to show them…”
The ending verse is quite interesting. It implies that the ad campaigns for which he is famous has failed—nobody picks up the message. Write about the frustration of repeating a message that never seems to sink in. Or flip it and write about the benefits (small/immediate to big/lasting) that would come to the world if your message was taken to heart.
Write about a time when you had to go to an extreme to get your point across. Or simply write a poem with extremes in it: extreme imagery, overdetermined words, exxageratioin and hyperbole
Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.