Creative Nourishment: Writing prompt from Monica Rico and Suleika Jaouad

An attempt at something different

Singer Tracy Chapman

Two days ago,

The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad

released a writing prompt from Monica Rico.

It read:

Choose a song that you love. Start by spreading the lyrics across the page—maybe just a verse, maybe the whole song. Now begin to write your own lines between the lyrics. (To distinguish the two, you might want to mark the lyrics in bold or italics if you’re on a computer; if you’re writing by hand, either highlight or underline them.)

If you’d like, use the chorus or a line that speaks to you somewhere in your poem. Title your poem the name of the song and credit the artist.

I don’t think I’ve attempted writing to a prompt since college. I rarely, if ever, engage with lyrical writing.

But something about this specific prompt spoke to me in a place I don’t often access. And what is brain food for if not to access these unexplored parts of me to see what ideas linger?

The recent reinvigoration of excitement around Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” vis-à-vis Luke Combs’ cover takes me to a place that is uncomfortable to visit. I discovered the song the second semester of my senior year of high school (albeit through a cover by Kina Grannis, so I apologize for not being the cool teen that knew good music).

I was falling in love for the first time that semester. Preparing to leave my hometown in the dust and begin college. Inching myself towards adulthood and what I thought was freedom.

There’s such a vast dissonance between who I was then and who I am now. I think about closing that gap each time I hear this song, and I clench.

Here’s my attempt at doing it anyway.