I’m hosting today at http://www.ethicalela.com/unphotographed/ with a prompt to write about an unphotographed moment.
Unphotographed
Our Hosts
Kim Johnson, Ed.D., lives in Williamson, Georgia, where she serves as District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools. She enjoys writing, reading, traveling, camping, and spending time with her husband and three rescue schnoodles – Boo Radley (TKAM), Fitz (F. Scott Fitzgerald), and Ollie (Mary Oliver). You can follow her blog, Common Threads: patchwork prose and verse, at www.kimhaynesjohnson.com.
Kyle Vaughn is the author of Calamity Gospel (forthcoming from Cerasus Poetry, 2023), The Alpinist Searches Lonely Places (Belle Point Press, 2022), and Lightning Paths: 75 Poetry Writing Exercises (NCTE Books, 2018), and is the co-author/co-photographer of A New Light in Kalighat (American Councils for International Education, 2013). His poems have appeared in journals such as The Journal, A-Minor, The Boiler, Drunken Boat, Poetry East, Vinyl, the museum of americana (2022 Best of the Net nomination), and The Shore (2021 Pushcart Prize nomination). He teaches English and is the Director of the Writing Center at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Find him at www.kylevaughn.org / twitter: @krv75 / insta: @kylev75
Inspiration
In his book Lightning Paths: 75 Poetry Writing Exercises, Kyle Vaughn’s resources are rich and plentiful for exploring various forms of poetry. I discovered his website, where I discovered his exercise Unphotographed. I began thinking of all the ways I use photos to inspire poetry…..and Vaughn reshaped my thinking about all the photographs not taken.
Process
To sharpen descriptive techniques and synesthesia in writing, consider a moment etched in your memory for which there is no photograph. Use sensory details to capture the photograph that doesn’t yet exist – – and breathe snapshot life into a picture of words. Write an unphotographed moment, from corner to corner, whether Polaroid, black and white, sepia, digital, 35 mm with or without filters……whatever the effect. Step into the frame. Take our hands. Bring us to your moment.
Kim’s Poem
Unphotographed Grief
your furrowed brow
thumb and forefinger cradling your chin
your lips quivering like her hand ~ unstoppable
teary eyes fixed on your shoe
on anything
on nothing
you in your chair
in the room
where she drew
her last breath
where her whispers linger
screams
laughs
cries
where there are no words
to hide the thudding drumbeat
of your broken heart
Your turn.
Common Threads 