Professor Kathleen Rooney
Professor Rooney is a founding member of poetry group, Poems While You Wait, and a founding editor of Rose Metal Press. She has also published various works like her national best-seller Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (St. Martin’s Press 2017/Picador 2018) and newly published poetry collection Where are the Snows (Texas Review Press 2022). Next week she will be sharing some insight on her love for prompts.
In Praise of Prompts
Constraints are often where I find my greatest freedom. I give a ton of prompts when I teach creative writing at DePaul, and my fellow typewriter poets and I receive a ton of prompts when we’re out writing for strangers at Poems While You Wait. My latest poetry book Where Are the Snows would not even exist were it not for prompts put together by my friend and fellow poet Kimberly Southwick’s National Poetry Month poem-a-day group in April 2020.
There’s something attractive in discipline and dedication — committing to something that at first seems arbitrary, but that through attention and effort takes on deeper meaning.
So my best tip is: give yourself or get your friends to give you prompts. Like this one:
List ten mistakes you’ve made.
Pick one and apologize to the person most hurt by your mistake – offer a penance.