Greetings, writers—
Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
Will the Summer come again?
Rain on houses, on the street,
Wetting all the people’s feet,
Though they run with might and main.
Rain and wind, and wind and rain.
This excerpt from a Katherine Mansfield poem is Portland this week.1
Yes, I’ve lived here for almost 20 years, but February always surprises me with its wretchedness. “We’re all turning into mushroom people,” Jon said this morning.
Rain apologists will tell you that precipitation is good for creativity—something about the white noise and the coziness and the fewer opportunities for FOMO—but whatever, I just want my feet to be warm again.
I just searched for rain poems and found a million. Here is a somewhat random sampling (please read the Jori Graham at least):
Jack Gilbert misses someone in the rain.
Jori Graham welcomes rain after a drought.
Khaled Mattawa sings a rain song.
Jean Starr Untermeyer always hated rain.
Alex Dimitrov loves the rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reminds us that the sun’s shining behind the clouds.
I like some of these poems better than others, but what I love is seeing how six different people use rain in such wildly different ways.
Never start with the weather, says every writing teacher ever.
Let’s break the rules. Today, start a scene or a poem or a freewrite with rain. See where it takes you.
Want a few more constraints to increase creativity? Add in one or more of the following:
an animal, a stranger, a wish, a mistake, a near miss.
Happy writing—
Emily
veins festoon the broad day sky
wintering
beads of sorrow splash earthside
Leibniz would say that happened for a reason