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| Using a quote can help open up your focus. Poet Margaret Randall, also a sensitive photographer and world traveler, has practice looking through other lenses. |
My friend, the poet and activist Margaret Randall, created a stunning book several years ago using quotes as prompts. Where They Left You for Dead includes the words of Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Paul Monette, Audre Lorde, Eduardo Galeano, Linda Hogan and many others.
After the quote and attribution, Randall springboards off, moving us out of the quote. Each quote helps her to find the deep ends of life.
Let's consider this quote by Audre Lorde, included toward the beginning of the book, "I could slip anchor and wander / to the end of the jetty / uncoil into the waters / a vessel of light."
Randall shoots off from those words into a poem about watching her partner suffering in pain, "You say you are / leaving yourself behind. A sort of death (you watch / my face) but not in this dimension, a different recipe / for dying. Pay attention now. ..."
What a wonderful approach to the blank page, and what a way to honor words you love! Find a beautiful quote (or one that disgusts you, even... this, too, could lead to some intriguing writing..). Then, jump off. Don't worry about landing for a while; just swim around in the words — yours and the other writer. See where you can travel, how far from shore you can swim.
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