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.”
DAY 17: MENNA ELFYN
Found Poetry
My great friend, the late Nigel Jenkins first introduced me to the idea of ‘found poetry’ in the late eighties. It wasn’t a concept or a way of writing that I was familiar with– being raised on an overdose of Welsh language poetry and trying somehow to escape from the shackles of writing in strict metre. So when ‘found poetry’ found me, it was a kind of liberation and it allowed me to get going. The short poems were usually humorous ones, as I’d find things that were quirky or ridiculous fairly easy to express but of course one can write ‘found poetry’ in a sombre mood just as I discovered one time watching CNN and a gun executive talking about the need to buy guns – saying that there would always be the need for ‘intelligent guns’! I’ll leave it at that.
Prompt: Found poetry/ lost and found
Newspapers/ magazines I suggest you flick through any newspaper at hand, or online. Read some stories and then imagine the scenario, in another way. It may well be you’d want to change the ending or imagine the lead up to whatever incident is reported.
Listening to the radio too can be a source that will lead you to writing a ‘found poem’. I’ve always found – yes, found, late night or morning callers on Radio live programmes so revealing and there will be a little nugget in their talk that will intrigue and inspire.
Eavesdropping: you may want to sit in a café – at the same time every day for a week and get to see or know more of either the person serving or some regulars. Make a note. I once wrote a poem ‘Dwli yn y Deli’—which means ‘Nonsense in a Deli’ with two women saying things like ‘Oh I never eat fish – they never travel’ or ‘Oh, there’s nothing sad as a woman wearing a long scarf’ (this was 1998 by the way!).
Take a poem you have written and ‘rough it up’. Rewrite it from the bottom up to its original beginning. That way you’re avoiding writing in a linear way. I always mistrust the first couple of lines anyway as it’s only you arriving in the ‘lobby’—the real wonderful room you enter usually comes later.
I enclose a couple of my found poems which are unlikely to be published—having said that I do have a poem in the next Planet magazine called ‘Morning After’ – the Brexit Blues!
MENNA ELFYN
Found Poem
(101 things every girl needs to know with apologies to Manolo)
The Mail on Sunday
A good heel picks you.
Stand tall.
You must show some toe cleavage.
It gives sexuality to the shoe.
Only show the first two cracks.
You’re not that type of girl.
The heel, it’s got to be high.
Coup de theatre.
The height of the heel depends
on how dangerous you’re feeling.
When you have heels,
you only need to pack two black dresses
and fill the case with 20 pairs of shoes.
Let the heels do all the talking.
MENNA ELFYN
Found poem: Words from a Bigot
I built the Great Wall of China
but made the Mexicans pay for it.
I won’t call myself an astronaut
But I was there when we landed on the Moon.
I stormed the beaches of Normandy
and took out three German bunkers
with a golf club.
I was there at Ground Zero
In 9/11 – I wasn’t the first responder
but I was looking out of the window in Midtown Manhattan
I know China is scared of me
Because of my very large brain.
Never mind that all this green energy
Makes me look orange
As for some secret papers I’ve been handed,
I can just think about them and they’re mine.
All mine.
Oh and my daughter when asked
What she’d learned from me – said my moral compass
What a beauty she is—what’s a compass again?
MENNA ELFYN
Dwli dwy yn y Deli
(clustfeinio ger Park Avenue, Efrog Newydd, 1998)
Hanner can mil o ddoleri-
Dyna i gyd- am drwyn newydd?
O, na, does dim yn fwy trist
Na menyw sy’n gwisgo sgarff hir.
Rhufain- nawr, dyna’r lle i fynd
I gwrdd â rhywun savvy.!
Bwyd y môr? Na,
Dyw e byth yn teithio!
Pam nad oes neb yn gwisgo
Galoshes rhagor? Treiners mor hyll.
Pâr o asbaragws ar wely gyda’r eog,
Ow- mae’n cyd-orwedd gyda phopeth.
O, es i ddim i mewn i Tiffany heddi
Own i heb eillio fy nghoesau.
Rwy’n dwli dod yma i’r Deli,
Ni’n dwy, wel, yn cael amser da.
Wastad pan ni yno, sbo’ n cael lot o sbri
New York Times (gwraig wrth edrych ar Tiffany & Company)
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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