My Grandfather's Legacy
A young woman I know recently introduced me to the work of Sarah Hutt. Sarah is an artist who developed a unique concept for memorializing her mother, thirty years after her death. The project takes the form of a thousand-line poem, burned onto the bottoms of one thousand wooden bowls. You can read some of the inscriptions on her website, My Mother's Legacy.
I found this concept quite inspiring, and I’ve begun writing lines about one of my grandfathers, using the name I knew him by. Here are a few of them:
Perhaps you’ll also find this idea of starting a string of memories by using a name or title (my mother, my grandmother, my Aunt Bessie, etc.) followed by discrete memories a great way of jumpstarting story ideas or simply use the string of statements as a unique story unto itself. I’ll bet you have a fair idea of what my grandfather Pop was like from only these ten statements.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
I found this concept quite inspiring, and I’ve begun writing lines about one of my grandfathers, using the name I knew him by. Here are a few of them:
- Pop smoked a pipe
- Pop was a photographer
- Pop took Robin and me to baseball games
- Pop made the best sourdough pancakes in the world
- Pop taught me how to catch catfish
- Pop taught me to make purple-toned photo proofs with press frames and sunlight
- Pop thought everything I did was perfect
- Pop let Robin and me push his VW Bug up and down the driveway
- Pop laughed at every joke I ever told him
- Pop always had a smile on his face
Perhaps you’ll also find this idea of starting a string of memories by using a name or title (my mother, my grandmother, my Aunt Bessie, etc.) followed by discrete memories a great way of jumpstarting story ideas or simply use the string of statements as a unique story unto itself. I’ll bet you have a fair idea of what my grandfather Pop was like from only these ten statements.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
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