writing prompt: method acting
September26
(photo credit If you can’t say anything nice by Erena Rae)
Here’s a prompt with an edge, a straight edge that is. Close your eyes and think what it would be like to live as the razor in Erena Rae’s illustration. Then, choose one of these interview questions below and answer it in the comments section. Copy and paste your question so we know which one you’re answering.
You don’t have to speak directly to the question, just write what comes to you. You are the razor, and it’s your question. Or make up your own question, and go with that, as long as you embody the razor.
Anyone can participate — core collaborative members as well as all our friends and supporters. So what are you waiting for?
Interview questions for the razor
- What do you look for in a lover?
- What hands have wielded you?
- Tell me about the surface areas you’ve touched.
- Talk about your marriages.
- Where are your children?
- How long has it been since you’ve been used?
- Who would you like to touch next?
- Seen any good movies lately?
- What book is on your bedside table?
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I’ll have to think on this one.
I can’t *wait* to do this. I’ve always wanted to be a razor.
Funny, I was *just* thinking about her art and wanting to dig into something. Hmmm. Shapely serendipity.
This is great Christine but I have a feeling it’s going to get me in trouble.
Nathan, you’re a razor blade. Blades are always trouble.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I think in ten years I’ll be president of the United States. From the toolbox I can see Russia.
Nathan, do this one! We love trouble.
Hey! I love this. I love Dana’s comment (always wanted to be a razor). Ha! I’ll have to think for a bit, too. I can’t wait to see what everybody comes up with.
I gave your link to a couple of high school teachers I met at a meeting. When I described what you do, they said they want to use your prompts for their classes. Don’t worry…the students are either 18 or pretty close to it:)
I thought it was cool to meet teachers who are open to creativity, and this site is perfect for fun learning.
Julie, we’d be happy to put some prompts together specifically for those students if they would like. Just let us know. I’ve seen that a number of educators and educational book publishers have made their way to the site. I think we’d all be in agreement that we’d like to work with educators and educational publishers in any way possible to bring a collaborative approach to teaching poetry into the classrooms.
Deb, since you and I live so close together, it might even be fun to see if we can arrange to go into a class as guest teachers and do some collaborative poetry exercises with students. I know a high school creative writing teacher who would love to have us do something like that.
Nathan and Slynne, you all could do something similar, too.
Dorothy Parker: “If you can’t say something nice, come sit next to me.”
Dave, I think you should channel Dorothy Parker for this exercise, not the razor. You’d do a good Dorothy, I suspect.
I did a little freewriting as the razor. I don’t know what we’re going to do with all our free writes, but I suspect it will be interesting.
I
I lead you to the shower, tilt your head. Your back meets the tile wall. Water sheets over your thighs. I move along each cheek, save the jawbone for last. How dangerous it is to round the sharp corners where face and neck meet. You wince, relax, wince.
II
Others take me. I make some tremble with what they need but can’t bring themselves to do. Most slide me over their skin thoughtlessly. I have been folded in two, left in dank, unsanitary places. I have never removed myself from them, always been removed.
III
The smallest hands can barely wrap around me. The largest make me feel like a trinket, something to be slipped away and forgotten like a toy harmonica. Fingerprints never quite wipe off, even with soap. Water pours over and over me. Still, I am marked.
IV
All I know is skin and what grows out of it that you don’t desire. All I know is removal, cutting nearly to the roots so that hands may pass over unhindered. All I know is what you want me to know, what you direct me to do in swiping motions.
V
It is a marriage of convenience: my metal, your body. It is a marriage built on shame. How I take from you what you can’t suffer in yourself. You do not think of me when we touch. Only what I do for you. This service. You leave me on the porcelain, dull with longing.
[...] did some free-writing based on a prompt Christine created over at The Poetry Collaborative in which she asks us to write from the perspective of a razor. I [...]
OK, I think I’m addressing question #2: What hands have wielded you?
But it gets to a couple of them I think. This is a very rough rough draft of something. It has had no revision at all. (Did I mention it’s a rough draft?)
Here goes:
Most of the time I
am my own object.
closed, hollow, safe.
With her touch I open,
become dangerous.
I love the way she
greets me with the
strap — snapping in
her hand as I’m
winged against the
leather.
When we’re together
I’m sharp. I slice the air
on the way to the bath.
Most never see her here.
This time is ours. We work.
Smooth and slow I submerge
and rise. I know her better
than other lovers — the small
scar on her left thigh, the mole
near her knee.
We practice our art
gracefully in the steam.
She becomes my blade.
I’m an extension of her arm.
I was made for her, to smooth
to sculpt, to carve.
Wow………fab, love both of these pieces.
imagine me going
where I oughtn’t
tip slid
under nail
and lifted
nicking the tonsil
or tongue
it isn’t the act
you suffer
towards
but the threat
webbed
against your throat
This is just great. Really.
I’m not sure “webbed” is the right word. I was thinking of a line as thin as a spider web. “Etched” seemed too obvious.
I think it’s a surprising word there. I like the connotation of being stuck or attached. As a reader, I love the pleasure of surprise but I do see what you mean.
“Webbed” just sounds too delicate and gentle, but I tend to write based on sound before meaning, so I want a word that sounds like “webbed” or “etched” but it isn’t either one of those words.
I write like that too! Sound before meaning I mean. I know, I like the vowels in “threat” and “webbed” and “etched.” What about “stretched”? Do you want suggestions? If not, please ignore.
I always want suggestions!
Twitches and Nathan, both your pieces are great. How about splayed? Not the same sound, but an interesting word. I also do like webbed.
If you can’t say anything nice, fix your speech impediment, OK?
“splayed against your throat” is one hell of an image. It makes one almost think of “slashed,” too. But alas, not the right sound.