I’ve always been a little intimidated by poetry, both by reading it and writing it, and Marie Howe is the person who cracked that door open for me. Marie is a former poet laureate of New York and also one of the most impactful teachers I’ve ever had, even though I’ve never officially been her student.
The first time I met Marie, I was struck by her force. She has a giant mane of curls and a soulful voice and a room-filling electric energy. She has a remarkable ability to be both serious and rigorous but also playful and irreverent, quoting the Gospel of Luke one minute, reading an ode to all her exes’ penises (!) the next.
I so admire how she makes room for it all, especially in this time where it seems like everyone is trying to distill their interests into a beat or a brand. Instead, Marie allows space for the multitudes. She’s so profoundly authentic that it’s immediately clear when something else is not the real thing.
We were fortunate that Marie contributed a prompt back in August, and I’m excited to share it again today.
—Suleika
In This New World by Marie Howe
For the first time in the history of the planet every country is connected by this Covid pandemic, and has slowed down or come to a great pause. This is a time for us to imagine a future that we have not been able or willing to imagine before.
So many films have been made about the destruction of the world, so many dystopias written and watched. We have seen so many fictional people murdered and tortured on films and on television, and in real life and online. What if we use our imaginations to imagine not our fears but our hopes? To create in writing a world we want to live in? A world we want our friends and families to live in? A world we want the other animals to live in? A detailed vision?
It’s painful sometimes to imagine what we believe we can't have.
At the Dodge Poetry Festival years ago, we set up a tent called Imagine the Future. People felt foolish writing their visions on the big board. Or they felt afraid—or cynical. “It'll never happen” so many people, especially young people, said. But sometimes someone would step up and write something.
One young woman wrote, “In this new world, I could walk to the store at night and not be afraid.”
The poet William Blake wrote, “What is now proved was once only imagined.”
Your prompt for the week:
Let's write a description of the world we really want. Let's be exuberant, and dare to create it. Picture it, and be as particular as you can. Gardens on every city roof? What is growing there—corn? flowers? trees? Enjoy every detail. It is possible if we imagine it.