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 14th 2023, over 4200 children have been killed and more than 7000 have been injured “due to unrelenting attacks”, while over 1300 others are missing. According to the World Health Organization, one child is killed in Gaza every 10 minutes. 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.”
This prompt by Mari Ellis Dunning is poignant in a way that we did not realize it would be when it was first written, as so many births are happening now in Gaza without proper care, and premature babies do not have incubators to keep them alive.
DAY 14: MARI ELLIS DUNNING
Responding to Adversity
Writing has always been my way to process challenging situations. In difficult times, I tend to let the experience/s percolate, sitting in my heart and mind long after the circumstances have passed, until eventually the whole thing unfurls as a poem.
In my collection, Pearl and Bone, I have documented, through poetry, several pivotal moments of my pregnancy, labour with a premature baby and time spent on a postnatal ward during the COVID-19 crisis.
A POEM BY MARI ELLIS DUNNING
Staying on the postnatal ward during Covid-19
There is no sleep here, where women shuffle, barefoot.
Elasticated waistbands. Nightgowns trailing linoleum.
We are pale and bloodless ghosts. We are waning
moons. We do not speak to one another. In a bed
feet from mine, someone chokes, a sob thick as toffee
cloying her throat. An indifferent curtain hangs between us.
Somewhere on the ward, a baby cries, pitching its vowels
to the ceiling fan. The baby isn’t mine. My baby is a lost
creature, hibernating in a sterile incubator, a corridor stretching
between us like a deep lake. Tubes like terrible worms
curling his nostrils. Burrowing into his hands. He has shaken
something loose in me, like coins rattling in an old tin. I swell
and I leak. A sudden mother. For a week, it goes like this:
me, wringing my hands at his cribside, my stupid pupils dry
and wide. Watching his heartbeat form steady mountaintops
against the darkness. Friends framed like portraits,
stuttering their congratulations through phone screens.
His father, pitched miles away, butting at doors that scream:
Stop.
No entry.
Prompt
Are there experiences in your past that you found difficult, challenging or complex? Have you fully processed those events, or would writing a poem help you to do that? Traumatic events often revolve around endings — perhaps the end of a relationship, a move or a death — or a change, the shift from one state of being to another. Perhaps you’ve suffered with a physical or mental ailment, been involved in an accident, or witnessed something troubling that has left a mark on you.
Once you’ve pinpointed the circumstances you’d like to explore in your writing, begin by gathering a list of words you’d associate with the experience. These might be more abstract words, such as emotions, (‘sad,’ ‘lonely’) or more concrete specifics, like ‘bruise,’ ‘cut,’ or ‘jamjar.’ Anything that comes to mind is fine, as long as it feels authentic and true to your experience.
Now, tell your story. Try to incorporate as much imagery as you can, focussing on metaphor and simile. Where it feels too difficult to address something directly, use an image instead, for example a hospital stay might become a hotel stay, or a scar might become a worm.
Please consider donating to a charity providing medical aid in Gaza. We recommend UNICEF’s Appeal for Children in Gaza, but other charities include:
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
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