Today's prompt:
And now for our prompt. This one is a bit involved, which is why I’m giving it to you on a Saturday. Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the “Personal Universal Deck” originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.
Don’t agonize over your word choices. Making the deck should be fun and revealing, as you generate words that sound “good” to you. The fact that the words are mainly divided among the five senses should be helpful in selecting words that you like the sound of, and that have some meaning personal to you. For example, my deck contains “harbor,” “wool,” “murmur,” “obsidian,” and “needle.”
Once you have your deck put together, shuffle it a few times. Now select a card or two, and use them as the basis for a new poem.
This sounded like an interesting idea to me, however as the father of three young children I was never going to get the chance to cut out fifty pieces of paper, let alone cover them with 100 thoughtful words and then write a poem after that. But I'd like to think that it's something like I'd like to visit in the future.
Instead I used this random word generator to give me some random words and I worked from there. The words I got were Disturbance~Shift~Return. So here's the poem:
When will life return
to normal?-But I ask
What can we learn
from this disturbance
in our lives? Will priorities change?
Can we curb
Capitalist pressures to consume
Has the pandemic taught
The importance of family
The importance of friends
and those who care for us?
Or will we fail to shift
Our values
Go back to forgetting the gift
Of being home with our loved ones
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