Welcome to the cKotch.Com blog. I’m Christopher Kotcher, and this is how a special gift made me a poet.
My Early History with Poems
When I started writing, poems were the furthest thing from my mind. My focus was novels. Telling stories with my characters.
Poetry was like reading. It was reserved for school assignments. Poetry units came and went every school year. Sometimes, I only needed to read poems. Other times, I needed to write a couple here and there.
I did not dislike poetry. Literature textbooks featured decent enough poems. I memorized and recited poems for my high school’s Oratorical event. My dad even had binders full of poems he had written over the years as a hobby.
I just did not have a strong desire to write poems. Though much like with reading, this attitude would eventually change.
The key was a Christmas gift received a few years into college.
A Thoughtful Gift
My parents sat on the couch with my maternal grandma sitting between them. I sat on the floor, rough housing with the dog and passing out presents.
After the usual batch of video games, books, and T-shirts, I grabbed a present which made my mom’s heart flutter. She had been looking forward to this one.
I unwrapped the gift and found a blue book titled 300 Writing Prompts. It held lines upon lines upon lines for writing. Each page had one or two sections asking writers to respond to featured topics and questions.
My parents expected me to be excited. Instead, I gave a half-smile and told them the promptbook might be something fun to do after my finishing my current writing projects. (You see, for some reason, I have this dumb tendency to resist the best things which happen to me.)
Thankfully, my parents were unfazed by my writer’s ego. They merely pointed to a sticky note hanging in the promptbook’s front cover.
The note was a message from my mom. It said this promptbook would come to hold the greatest things I have ever written. I was therefore obliged to one day return the book to her as a treasure she would cherish forever.
That request certainly made me feel lousy for initially passing off a thoughtful gift. I now owed it to my parents, especially my mom, to make the promptbook a priority.
An Intriguing Prompt
Later that Christmas day, I cracked open the promptbook and started writing.
The first few prompts were simple personal questions. Then I came across a prompt which read, “You are the wind’s interpreter. What is it saying?”
It was the start of winter when I read that prompt. Wind would be seen as some horribly chilling force of nature. But this view would only last until spring and summer. Then the wind would be seen as a blessing on a hot day. I focused my response on this changing perception. I made the wind a person responding to how other people treat it.
When I set my pencil down, I was proud of my response. The piece seemed to have sparked the excitement I should have always had for the promptbook. I wanted to see what other writing that little blue book could inspire.
Always in the Book
A few days later, my mom noticed how much time I was spending in the promptbook.
She gave me a knowing smile. There was no doubt in her mind I would go nuts for it at some point.
To make my initial worries even more foolish, the promptbook also hardly cut into my time with other writing projects. In fact, I actually started spending more time on these projects.
Working within the limits of the promptbook boosted both my creativity and self-reflection. I needed to carefully consider how to create engaging, honest responses in only a few short lines. This growth then carried over into the rest of my writing. I became more conscious of each word in a piece and how it fit into a piece’s purpose.
I was moving through the promptbook at a breakneck pace. As a running gag, I always made sure to be writing in the promptbook when my mom was in the room. Then I would hold up the left side of the promptbook to show her how many pages I had already finished. When less than 100 prompts remained, I started a countdown to make her laugh even more.
Somehow, my mom did not realize why I was working so hard on the promptbook.
She had wanted the completed promptbook as a gift to her. I wanted it ready for a special occasion.
Mother’s Day.
A Gift Returned
The promptbook was finished. I placed my mom’s sticky note on the front cover so she would know the little blue book was ready for her.
My mom hugged me right away. She asked if this book really did contain the greatest things I had ever written. I nodded.
I wanted her to read the promptbook right away. I even pointed out the wind prompt which got me so excited about the gift in the first place.
However, we first needed to go to my paternal grandparents’ house for some Mother’s Day breakfast. When we returned home, I motioned to the promptbook. My mom said she needed to be in the right mood to read it.
This became a pattern.
Every day I gestured to the promptbook, and every day my mom said she would read it later. The thing just sat at the edge of the kitchen table, resigned to remaining unread.
Prompts Lead to Poems
I thought back to what was written in the promptbook. A few responses hung in my mind, but my response to the wind prompt was always first and foremost among them.
I wanted these writings to be cherished forever, not left unread on a kitchen table.
I could not take it anymore.
I opened the promptbook and took pictures of the handful of prompts buzzing through my brain. These responses needed to become something which anyone could enjoy.
But novels and short stories did not seem the best way to adapt my work in the promptbook. My responses were small and focused. Turning them into larger pieces could have dampened their power.
Then I remembered poetry.
Poems are based on working within limits. Poets can choose to consider everything from line length and rhyme scheme to syllable counts and structures. A form of writing based on limits seemed like the perfect way to adapt my promptbook responses.
I first adapted that favorite prompt of mine, the wind prompt. The process worked better than expected, and a new talent began to form. After adapting a few more prompts, I wanted to dabble in poems even more.
I began writing poems without a direct basis in the promptbook.
Works Finally Read
Summer slowly started to pass.
I grabbed a book of poetry exercises to improve my latest pursuit as a writer. I shared my promptbook poems with my mom to help advertise the promptbook to her. She loved the poems. But she was still waiting for the right mood to read the promptbook.
Then the time came for our annual visit to my mom’s brother, my Uncle Rusty, down in Florida.
On the plane, my mom pulled the promptbook out of her bag. She was finally ready to read the thing. In the air, by the beach, at the pool. She even acted like this was her plan all along.
Honestly, I did not care either way. She was finally opening the present I made specifically for her. I turned on an in-flight move, and eagerly awaited hearing what my mom had to say about my writing.
Halfway through the flight, I heard someone crying. I turned off my movie and saw my mom’s tears staining the promptbook. Soon she sniffled and closed it.
My mom struggled to explain. Apparently, she could barely handle reading something I had so fully thrown myself into.
This became a pattern.
Any time my mom tried reading the promptbook, she would start crying and close it.
I do not fully understand how my presence in the promptbook got my mom so emotional. Maybe age, experience, or something else blocks my understanding. Maybe I will understand in time. For now, I figure my mom’s reaction is tied to having seen her only kid grow up.
Some Clear Lessons
Still, my mom’s reaction did teach me some clear lessons.
- My mom must have known in some way she would react the way she did. She believed a right mood had to exist for reading the promptbook because she knew would be unable to read it otherwise.
- I need to keep up with poetry. Out of all my writing, my promptbook has had the greatest effect on a reader. My poems were birthed from the same part of me as these promptbook responses. Like with the promptbook, these poems could also help me develop my other forms of writing.
- Throwing myself into my writing is the best way to make it powerful. If I put everything I have into a piece, people can sense the passion and purpose in it. Such writing has a far greater effect on them.
I want to take these lessons and spread them to the rest of my writing, including this blog. My poems are the first things I have published after all. Granted, the place of publication was a college literary journal, but it was still a start. Of course, “The Wind’s Message” was one of the first poems to appear in those glossy pages.
Kotcher’s Call to Action
I eagerly await the day you can read a larger collection of my poems. For now, how about I let you read the first of my promptbook poems? Please enjoy The Wind’s Message.
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