National Poetry Month Writing Prompt 12/30

National Poetry Month Writing Prompt 12/30

Hello YCA Fam, 

April is National Poetry Month, and many poets choose to write one poem each day during April to celebrate the occasion. This year, we are going to be posting a writing prompt every day during April to help you with this writing challenge. Many of these prompts were developed by the YCA Artistic team for our weekly writing workshop, Check The Method. If you write poems to these prompts, share them on social media and tag us (@youngchiauthors on Twitter & @youngchicagoauthors on Instagram).

Here is prompt number 12, which uses poems by Franny Choi & Idris Goodwin:

List: 
Nicknames you’ve been given
Nicknames you’ve given yourself
Mispronunciations of your name (if it applies)
Family names that are important to you
People you were named after
Pet names you’ve been given
Pet names you’ve given
What you call your close friends
Any groups/frats/sororities you’ve been a part of

Read/Watch:

 

Choi Jeong Min by Franny Choi 
For my parents, Choi Inyeong & Nam Songeun

in the first grade i asked my mother permission
to go by frances at school. at seven years old, 

i already knew the exhaustion of hearing my name
butchered by hammerhead tongues. already knew

to let my salty gook name drag behind me  
in the sand, safely out of sight. in fourth grade

i wanted to be a writer & worried
about how to escape my surname—choi

is nothing if not korean, if not garlic breath,  
if not seaweed & sesame & food stamps

during the lean years—could i go by f.j.c.? could i be  
paper thin & raceless? dust jacket & coffee stain,

boneless rumor smoldering behind the curtain
& speaking through an ink-stained puppet?

my father ran through all his possible rechristenings—  
ian, isaac, ivan—and we laughed at each one,

knowing his accent would always give him away.  
you can hear the pride in my mother’s voice

when she answers the phone this is grace, & it is  
some kind of strange grace she’s spun herself,

some lightning made of chain mail. grace is not  
her pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.

these are the shields for the names we speak in the dark
to remember our darkness. savage death rites

we still practice in the new world. myths we whisper  
to each other to keep warm. my korean name

is the star my mother cooks into the jjigae  
to follow home when i am lost, which is always

in this gray country, this violent foster home
whose streets are paved with shame, this factory yard

riddled with bullies ready to steal your skin
& sell it back to your mother for profit,

land where they stuff our throats with soil
& accuse us of gluttony when we learn to swallow it.

i confess. i am greedy. i think i deserve to be seen  
for what i am: a boundless, burning wick.

a minor chord. i confess: if someone has looked
at my crooked spine and called it elmwood,

i’ve accepted. if someone has loved me more
for my gook name, for my saint name,

for my good vocabulary & bad joints,
i’ve welcomed them into this house.

i’ve cooked them each a meal with a star singing  
at the bottom of the bowl, a secret ingredient

to follow home when we are lost:
sunflower oil, blood sausage, a name

given by your dead grandfather who eventually  
forgot everything he’d touched. i promise:

i’ll never stop stealing back what’s mine.
i promise: i won’t forget again.

Watch: Say My Name by Idris Goodwin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE1YNefJ1eQ

Prompt: 

Write a poem that tells the history of the evolution of your name(s)