Writing a poem is not intimidating. In fact, you can write pieces as short as 7-8 lines, send them to Life/Lines, and no one will judge your work.

Graphic by Christine Watridge

For National Poetry Month, the Center for the Humanities launched its Life/Lines project. Every weekday, five word poetry prompts are sent to the Life/Lines mailing list. Authors can choose to submit works either with their names attached or anonymously.

“The initiative came out of thinking about the importance of arts and the humanities during times like this,” Jean Allman, director of the Center for the Humanities, said. “We could do some kind of project that would sort of draw people’s creative energy rather than the sort of …anxiety, the anxious energy that we all have.”

Life/Lines participant junior Ellery Saluck occupied her time with writing poetry after her study abroad program in Peru was canceled and she was left with no class. While her classes have restarted, she’s still writing.

“My program was basically taking classes there for three weeks, and I was here for three weeks with no class. And I was starting to go crazy… So my friend sent me [the Life/Lines project]” Saluck said. “I really like this exercise because you kind of have to think a little bit… I think this is a wonderful creative exercise for your mind.”

Allman noted that Life/Lines’ mission is to stimulate creativity in the time of crisis, “especially [for] those who don’t think they can write poetry.”

“I am trying to imagine this as a counter-contagion. You know the way the virus is spreading, well poetry can spread just as fast,” Allman said. “…You might be carrying a poem inside of you, you just don’t know it.”

Right now, Life/Lines does not evaluate or select submissions. Instead, they hope it will serve as a record of the set of thoughts and emotions that people have been through during this time in history.

“We will end up with an amazing corpus of poetry that we can go back to, that is sort of an archive of what people’s thought processes had been, what they felt, the kind of emotional world people have inhabited during this April, which is one of the most serious of the months that we’re gonna be facing,” Allman said.

Because Life/Lines does not put pressure on authors to excel, it makes writing a relaxing and fun experience. Senior Tanvi Kohli, who became interested in poetry after taking a class on Hindi literature, is grateful for the opportunity to write poetry with low-stakes.

“I found out about Life/Lines because I do research for the Center for the Humanities, and one of my professors emailed me about the Life/Lines project,” Kohli said. “I usually just kind of give myself five to ten minutes tops to write the poem. I do that because I feel like it helps me just write it and not feel like it needs to be any good or put pressure on it, but you kind of have a fun exercise.”

The coordinating process for Life/Lines is ongoing, with different people orchestrating the daily prompts, starting from Allman herself, who gave the prompt on April 1, to acclaimed St. Louis poet Aaron Coleman. On Wednesday, the prompts came from Chancellor Andrew Martin.

“We’ve got some other poets coming down the pipeline, we’ve got someone from the board of trustees, we’ve got local community activists,” Allman said. “So we’re hoping that…we are creating bigger and bigger circles.”

Life/Lines connects the Washington University community while all of us are in isolation. Reading and writing poems for Life/Lines becomes the new way of communication across different parts of the University.

“I felt like I wasn’t expecting this at all for [the department] to add this to the mix of tasks to do,” Saluck said. “It made me feel very grateful for the Wash. U. community, even departments that I don’t necessarily belong to. “

The project will continue throughout April, and students can get involved at any point, even now. The prompt for today is “Start, travel, breeze, jostled, life.” Time to get writing.