13 Poetry Prompts Exploring Language and Translatability
13 Poetry Prompts Exploring Language and Translatability
Poetry writing prompts exploring multilingualism and linguistic identity
On July 7th, Zhagaram Literary Magazine conducted its very first poetry write-in with about 14 participants from all around the world. In our workshop, we explored multilingualism and linguistic identity through poetry.
As an extension to our workshop, we’re releasing these 13 writing prompts. We hope these prompts will encourage you to write poems exploring your linguistic identity.
Zhagaram is also currently open for poetry submissions for the themes discussed in this post and we’d be honoured to consider your poems for publication.
1. The Alphabet
Prompt 1: Write out the alphabets in your native language. What do these letters look like to you?
Prompt 2: Try to remember the first time you learnt the alphabet. How did it feel to learn a language through the lexicon of another?
2. First Word
Prompt 1: Ask your parents what your first word was. Write a poem exploring what it means to you now knowing that it was the first word you said aloud.
Prompt 2: Often, a child’s first words is some variant that means ‘mother’ or ‘father’. Mother as amma, mumma, mummy, ma and father as appa, paapa, papa, pa or dada for example. Write about how beautiful is it that often, the first thing a child does is call out to the mother, the father. Is this calling out of joy, out of fear, or some form of grounding the baby does? Write a poem exploring these ideas further.
3. Write a Translation
Find a poem, a prayer, a childhood rhyme or song in your native language. Attempt to write a translation of this. A literal translation might not often render the true essence of the poem. How can you best attempt to stay true to the original text while adding or removing parts to maintain the ethos of the work you are translating? What parts do you choose to leave as it is?
4. Write a Non-Translation
As an extension of the above prompt, some words should be left untranslated for it to thrive with meaning. Find such words in your language that have no direct translation to the English language. Find the words that when translated, lose all its essence. Without translating this word or phrase, write a poem honouring what it stands for.
5. Homophonic Translations
This is a fun exercise I came across on Christopher Patton’s exercise and I’m amazed by the poems that have come to me through it. You can read his detailed post on homophonic translations here.
6. How Letters Look
Watch this video by Ted Ed:
When I first watched it, I was fascinated by how the earliest forms of chinese characters were pictograms that evolved into the characters we know today. If you know the language, refer to the rich set of examples given in the video and write poems exploring the meaning of words while breaking down each character and stroke.
No matter which language you speak, this is a great exercise to perform and explore how letters are put together in your language. Try finding origin stories for your own alphabet and connect it to how these letters are used to build words.
7. Write a Contrapuntal
According to the Academy of American Poets, a contrapuntal poem is a poem that interweaves two or more poems to create a single poem that can be read in multiple ways, depending on how the poem is designed on the page.
Consider a contrapuntal which has two columns. Column 1 must be an individual poem written entirely in your native language. Column 2 must be another individual poem written entirely in English. When put together, both these columns must come together to present a third poem.
Remember to provide the translation for column 1 along with the original text in your native language. For an example, refer to Anuva Chowdhury’s wonderful poem in Pollux Journal.
Another really well written contrapuntal for your reference is Notes on My Present: A Contrapuntal by Natalie Scenters-Zapico.
If you’ve read a contrapuntal poem that you loved, do share it in the comments for me and others to refer to.
8. Explore Translation
The word translation is derived from Latin trans + latio (past of ferre), to mean to bring across or to carry across. In your poem, explore this breakdown of the word into trans and latio. Ferre resembling to ferry across. Conjure the image of words being ferried. Across what? Are the words intact despite their travel? Or does the journey change them by the time they reach the destination?
9. Word Morphology
In the above prompt, we broke down the word translation into trans + latio. Find other words and their origins and perform this exercise. What new meanings or clarifications does it bring to the word through this process? Explore these ideas through your poem.
Resources: The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
10. Language and Thought
In his essay Politics and The English Language, Orwell states: But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
He goes on to further say: This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.
If you have read George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, you’d remember how a completely different language called Newspeak was created to control the ways people spoke and as an extension, to control how people thought. A similar emphasis on how one speaks is seen in another dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
Write a poem exploring the power of language by taking note of how politicians and newspapers use language to control the way we think.
11. Name Dissection: Onomastics
Onomastics is the study of the origin and history of personal names. Through the name dissection prompt, this is what we will attempt to do. Read these poems for some examples before you begin writing to this prompt:
My Name by Dahee Joy Kang
The Birth Name by Warsan Shire
Answer the questions displayed below. It would be best if you could write them down as you go. The last four points will be your points of exploration to work towards your poem.
Some ways to direct your poem: origin stories, character study through a name, are you who your name wants you to be?
As we mentioned earlier, we’re currently open to submissions for Issue 03: Lexicon, for which we are curating poems based on the themes discussed in these prompts. Submissions are free and you can learn more here.
We look forward to reading your poems.
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