DAY 12: A PROMPT BY JEREMY DIXON

WRITING PROMPTS TO BENEFIT CHILDREN IN GAZA

UNICEF reports that in Gaza, “hundreds of thousands of children and families are caught in a catastrophic situation” and that, as of November 7th 2023, over 4200 children have been killed and more than 7000 have been injured “due to unrelenting attacks”, while over 1300 others are missing. Outlining the charity’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, UNICEF spokesman James Elder explains: “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It’s a living hell for everyone else.” Elder has also called for “children held hostage in Gaza [to] be immediately reunited with their families and loved ones”. Recent updates state that “hundreds of thousands of children … remain trapped in a war zone with little or no access to food, water, electricity, medicine or medical care”.

For the duration of NaNoWriMo, we will be posting a writing prompt every day and in doing so, we are hoping to encourage our community to donate to charities providing medical aid to children in desperate need in this unprecedented crisis.

These prompts have been created by writers from Wales or with a connection to Wales and its magazines and presses. The prompts are on all kinds of subjects, but many are related to anti-violence and the work of empathy, and they are offered with the simple hope that they might encourage people to donate in support of medical aid in Gaza. We include a list of suggested charities to donate to below, highlighting the Appeal to Children in Gaza.

UNICEF “continues to call for an immediate ceasefire as 1.1 million people — nearly half of them children — in northern Gaza have been warned to move out of the way of a widescale military assault, but with nowhere safe for them to go”. Elder concludes: “The humanitarian situation has reached lethal lows, and yet all reports point to further attacks. Compassion – and international law – must prevail.”

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DAY 12: JEREMY DIXON 

Joyous Translation

If there’s one thing running queer joy workshops has taught me, it is that joy is most definitely not the first theme poets turn to when deciding to write a new poem. Poets are used to writing about emotions and events that are difficult or upsetting as a means of making sense of what has happened and by turning it into art it becomes cathartic both for the poet and for the reader. It feels slightly counterintuitive to say that if our poem produces a physical or mental sigh, a sense of regret, or even a tear then this makes us very happy!

All these historic motivations and inspirations are totally valid (and full disclosure: much of my work deals with very difficult subject matter) so I’m not challenging this approach, but this poetry prompt is about playing with alternatives and seeing what magic happens as a result.

So here is the prompt: find a poem that you have already written, that you feel is successful and that you like and is a poem that deals with the bleaker side of life. Now study your poem from a distance, like a scientist in their laboratory and consider if there are ways in which you can translate and transmute these grim words into joyous, celebratory ones. It is not about making the poem laugh out loud funny (but then again, it could be!) but trying to use new words and thoughts to transform the already existing, and by changing the poem we may also alter something about us or our reactions or our past.

Perhaps you go through the poem line by line changing a word or phrase to its exact joyous opposite, or perhaps you change the setting of the poem, or perhaps you change some of the mother tongue of the poem, or use slang or dialect, or change the punctuation. Perhaps the seasons change, the characters change, the order, format and line length change. Allow the structure and form of the new poem to find its own path because the new poem probably wants to break free from the confines of the original poem. Allow the number of lines or stanzas to alter, in translation new words can take up more space or equally, you can be more joyous using less.

Now lay your two versions of the poem side by side and let them speak to each other. Perhaps the translation has taken on its own voice and is complete as it is, or perhaps it has become a stepping-stone to a new poem (if so, then write that new poem or poems!), or perhaps some lines from one poem now need to drop into the other one or vice versa.

In this world joy is precious, joy takes hard work, joy is transformation. Poetry is a Joyous Translation! Enjoy! 

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Please consider donating to a charity providing medical aid in Gaza. We recommend UNICEF’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, but other charities include:

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

The World Food Programme

Doctors Without Borders