Greg Delanty - #209 (9/10/12)

Award-winning Irish poet Greg Delanty, whose book, The Greek Anthology, Book XVII, comes out in December 2012 (Carcanet Press). Today's Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Greg Delanty. When his students come in on the first day of a term, he'll ask, "How are your spirits?" They'll answer great or fine or good or bad... whatever. Then he'll ask them if they've seen their spirit. "Where is it?" He'll ask. "Is it in your toe, or is it in your ear, or where? In your chest?" Generally, nobody has an answer. He then discusses "spirit" as an abstract word. Love and death and happiness and sadness are all abstract words for things that are, of course, much harder to pin down. In order to renew such a word or concept, an artist can physicalize it. As an example, he suggests students read "The Vacuum," by Howard Nemerov, in which a woman's soul is sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. This week's prompt is to think in these terms about spirit, or love, or another hard-to-pin-down word or concept. Write about it in a poem and renew it by somehow physicalizing it. Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another. Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band that existed briefly in 2008 and 2009, featuring several South Burlington High School students - now grads)