NEW YORK CITY KID WHO'S NOW A NYC ADULT
DIGITAL ARCHIVE PROJECT PROMPT: WOVEN TOGETHER
The city knows you better than any living person
because it has seen you when you are alone.
-Colson Whitehead
because it has seen you when you are alone.
-Colson Whitehead
This prompt is about the stitch work that is a lifetime spent in a
certain placeyou call home.
Write about the thread in your community that is making it vibrant for you at this moment. I began doing community work at the age of 10. At that age, it looked very differently than what it does now, 30 years later. There is one strand of it though that has remained the same: the setting. I have lived in my community my entire lifetime. I am walking distance from the school buildings that provided my k-12 public education. We all are living archives of our communities. As early as the age of 10, I noticed the shifts in my community that involved our schools, our parks, and small businesses. I recently wrote about those shifts that I witnessed at my elementary school. You can read my substack: "Against Your Elementary School's Window, you can't hear the rain."
This prompt is accompanied by a poem written by Nuyorican legend Sandra Maria Esteves. The poem that accompanies today's prompt is "Blanket Weaver" by Sandra Maria Esteves. In it, you will find a speaker that allows you to travel through the different incantations that lead to the ode this poem represents.
Write an ode about a person, a thread of sorts, in your community that is making it vibrant for you at this moment.
After writing your response to this prompt, feel free to submit to the archive via this form.
This prompt is accompanied by a poem written by Nuyorican legend Sandra Maria Esteves. The poem that accompanies today's prompt is "Blanket Weaver" by Sandra Maria Esteves. In it, you will find a speaker that allows you to travel through the different incantations that lead to the ode this poem represents.
Write an ode about a person, a thread of sorts, in your community that is making it vibrant for you at this moment.
After writing your response to this prompt, feel free to submit to the archive via this form.