Another example of a writing prompt/practice
The Glosa is a poetic form that usually has four ten-line stanzas, preceded by four lines quoted from another poem. The lines from the existing poem are used as the last lines in each stanza.
In essence, one is “writing toward the borrowed lines” of the poem you have chosen, almost as an epigraph or an honoring of the poet or poem. (paraphrased from In Fine Form, p. 88)
Here’s a sample of 15-minute Glosa that I worked on in a writing group, inspired by a David Whyte poem I love:
From David Whyte’s poem, “The Edge You Carry with You”
The lines and the glosa:
Your way home
Understood now
Not as an achievement
But as a giving up
Walking through the unknown
Up to the edge
The thrill and nausea of gazing over into the darkness
Is it annihilation or freedom?
Is it chaos or discovery?
Is there even a difference?
Standing at the edge, breathing, stomach beginning to settle
I look into the darkness and begin to fall
In the wind I hear the words
Your way home
It’s like waking to a new world
Transported in time – back, forward, across
I am really not sure
The air is crisp, the ground is soft yet sturdy
The darkness had dissipated into an easy clarity
As if in a blink of an eye, everything I look at has sharpened into wise focus
The fall landed me somewhere new, somewhere reassuring
Somewhere
Understood now
There is no rush here
No sense of urgency sounding itself through my nervous system
Keeping me on the edge of myself instead of right in the center
Here there is time
Here there is permission
To swim into the cleansing waters
And emerge renewed
Not for anyone else but me
Not as an achievement
It’s both familiar and strange, this new place of arrival
This world that exists over the edge, into the seeming darkness
There’s a language my bones understand
A rhythm in which my heart can rest,
An unknown that isn’t a threat, but rather an invitation
To enter into the mystery
Eyes open
The ancient and vast mystery
Not to grasp onto and figure out
But as a giving up
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