Prompt 154: The Power of a Short Assignment
A prompt inspired by Richard Blanco’s “What’s Love Got to Do?"
Hi friend,
In the last month, people have started asking me if I’m working on my next book. “You must be champing at the bit to write again,” one of them said.
In theory, yes—I’d love to be diving headlong into a new book project. One of my favorite things about writing Between Two Kingdoms was living in its orbit. Seven days a week, I woke up, went to my desk, and worked. Even if it was going terribly, I loved that I could step into that world and feel the pull of its gravity. I’m a bit adrift without it.
But at this moment, the thought of writing anything—especially a whole dang book—makes me want to run down to the basement and hide in the corner. Pinning down this idea I’ve been toying with, finding its framework, beginning to draft, revise, edit, draft, revise, edit—it’s incredibly daunting. Instead, I’ve been looking for creative propositions that have a low barrier for entry and inspire me to want to do more.
One of my favorites is an exercise I have given to my students in the past. It’s based on a prose poem by the poet Richard Blanco, called “What’s Love Got to Do?” I love this poem for so many reasons—its lyric beauty, its precise imagery, its sublime nostalgia. But maybe what thrills me most is its economy. In just 14 sentences, Blanco develops a detailed sense of place, compelling characters, high stakes, and a narrative arc. It reminds me of a passage in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, where she writes about the one-inch picture frame she keeps on her desk to remind herself: all she has to do is to write down as much as she can see through a one-inch picture frame.
And so I’m revisiting this poem, as I do every summer, reveling in the sonic beauty of its lines, the accumulating power of its refrain, “All summer… ”—and sharing a prompt inspired by it.
Sending love,
Suleika
P.S. Three quick reminders for paid subscribers:
Today at 1pm ET, I’m hosting a Studio Visit with Stephanie Danler. I’ll be asking her about writing fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays—i.e. how in the hell she manages to do it all. It’s going to be so good, and I can’t wait to see you there!
Inspired by Stephanie’s hit debut novel Sweetbitter, I started a discussion thread on achy, glorious, hopeful youth. Eager to hear your tales!
Lastly, we’ll be gathering for our virtual writing hour this Thursday, July 22 from 1-2 pm ET. Link to come later this week!
154. “What’s Love Got to Do?” by Richard Blanco
All summer papá holds a cigarette out the window of his laser-green Buick, points his lips left to blow the smoke into the mirage of exhaust between rush hour cars. All summer he listens to La Cubanisima on AM radio exploding with accounts of how Castro took everything we had, how we'd get it back someday. All summer he wears polyester ties and his over-polished loafers. All summer I float my arm like a wing out the window as we glide down Coral Way, past storefronts and memories: the 7-11 stops for Blow-pops and Slurpees, the square pizzas at Frankie's, the birthday dinners at Canton Rose. All summer I want to ask if he remembers what I remember, but I don't, so he just drives, all summer, keeping a safe distance in the right lane, from our Miami suburb to my uncle's bodega, where all summer I price and rotate, mop and bag and save for my own car. All summer I don't want to be me. I don't want to be my father either, eleven years in his windowless office adding and subtracting, wishing and forgetting he could be more. All summer he picks me up at 6:00 and we drive back on the same road, the same mix of cigarettes and Piña Colada air-freshener, the same visors eclipsing our faces, the same silence. All summer I wait for him to say something—anything, like: I hate grapefruit juice, or I can't stand the Navarro's, or I've cheated on your mother or I hate this life. What he did say was: I love Tina Turner, every time I took control of the radio and tuned-in to her FM hits. All summer he sang along in his thick Cuban accent (waus love gotta do/ gotta do wis it) and whistled through the words he didn't know. Then he'd say something about Mamá and him in the 60's dancing to Ike and Tina in Cuba, and pick up the refrain again (waus love but a secon' hand emoshun). He embarrassed me with his singing all summer, that summer before his throat swelled, before the weekly visits to Dr. Morad, before the Mitomycin and Hail Marys failed, before he'd never sing again. That summer, when all I managed to mutter was: Yeah, I love Tina too.
Your prompt for the week:
Write a prose poem using the refrain “All summer…”
About Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco is the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history—the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, he is the author of the poetry collections Looking for the Gulf Motel, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and City of a Hundred Fires. His latest book of poems, How to Love a Country, both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. He lives with his partner in Bethel, ME.
This is a great intro to a really unique poem. The structure pushed me to open up my first draft a few times to some deeper reflections on details, and turning points. Here's the latest version:
All summer I lived with what I could fit in a CRV that only I would drive into the middle of our U.S., where in thinner air my voice was so much better at saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in equal amounts, to work and play in equal amounts, telling the internship-based community who I hoped to be and who I simply was not. All summer I rotated my few professional outfits in my shabby stoner student sublet and walked the few blocks under the always-hotter sun to a desk, my anchor in the dazzling orbit of intelligent and occasionally humble professionals whose lives were mine to interrogate over eight weeks. All summer I was one of over a dozen young people invited to impress a one-of-a-kind company in a one-of-a-kind Colorado town - and all summer, I was one of many fewer who wasn’t interested in being anything but alive then and there. All summer, too, I reveled in my confident ability to ignore the cloying ex-boyfriend who was also there because privilege works that way in small, well-funded schools. All summer I rejected romance, tasted mountains, breathed liberty, listened to silence, grew callouses on my hands and feet, used the smell of early morning dirt and afternoon storms to know my place in space and time. All summer I followed instinct and friendship and forgot about the future every chance I got. All summer I absorbed each day without adding the weight of wishing it would never end, so that I almost forgot it even could, ever, end. All summer I was happy making the happiest summer that I would later realize I had ever had.
this is great, and btw suleika, richard blanco has joined the FIU creative writing program where my husband is the director—- we all would love to get you to miami in the near future for a reading or speaking engagement—-i have been telling everyone about the amazing work you are doing—- through the isolation journals, your fabulous memoir, and your incredible conversations with other creative souls, sharing so much inspiration and and light✨