Monday prompt

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

Hello, writers! Today I’ve been thinking about the idea of perspective, both in a literary sense and a general-life sense. Who is telling the story? What if someone else was telling it? Would the story be different? This morning I listened to a poem by Natalie Diaz entitled, Of Course She Looked Back, which imagines the thoughts of Lot’s wife, who is never named in the Bible, as she looked back on the destruction of her city, Sodom. In the story in Genesis, her looking back is an act of disobedience, and she is punished for it by being turned into a pillar of salt. The story spares no empathy for her, but leaves her standing alone in the desert, a literal object lesson in the consequences of not following instructions.

But Diaz, putting herself in the shoes of Lot’s wife, finds her actions more than understandable: ***Content warning: Some vivid descriptions of death and dying as the city is destroyed***

Of Course She Looked Back
by Natalie Diaz:

“You would have, too.
From that distance the shivering city
fit in the palm of her hand
like she owned it.

She could’ve blown the whole thing—
markets, dancehalls, hookah bars—
sent the city and its hundred harems
tumbling across the desert
like a kiss. She had to look back.

When she did, she saw
pigeons glinting like debris above
ruined rooftops. Towers swaying.
Women in broken skirts
strewn along burned-out streets
like busted red bells.

The noise was something else—
dogs wept, roosters howled, children
and guitars popped like kernels of corn
feeding the twisting blaze.

She wondered had she unplugged
the coffee pot? The iron?
Was the oven off?
Her husband uttered Keep going.
Whispered Stay the course, or
Baby, forget about it. She couldn’t.

Now a bursting garden of fire
the city bloomed to flame after flame
like hot fruit in a persimmon orchard.

Someone thirsty asked for water.
Someone scared asked to pray.
Her daughters or the crooked-legged angel,
maybe. Dark thighs of smoke opened
to the sky. She meant to look
away, but the sting in her eyes,
the taste devouring her tongue,
and the neighbors begging her name.

The poem is about Lot’s wife, but it is also about Diaz’ own experience as a woman, and about all women who are not centered in their own stories. For a deeper analysis of the poem you can listen to the On Being episode about it here.

For your writing prompt today, think of a story that is usually told from a certain point of view, and write about another, maybe even a minor, character in it. It can be another Bible story, a fable, a favorite book from childhood or adulthood. Or rewrite one of your own stories, essays, or poems from a different perspective. Or you can retell a story from your own life, something that happened that you blame yourself for, or that other people framed a certain way, and let your own voice be heard. “Of course she looked back,” or “Of course I quit that job” or “Of course I fell apart.” Or you can be playful: Tell a story of a family from the house’s perspective, or a story of the rain from the river’s perspective. Find some way to shift the narrative in an unexpected direction.