Hello dVerse Poets! Today is Prosery Monday, and we’re writing prose instead of poetry. Prosery is a dVerse form. To participate, you take the line of poetry that I will give you below and insert it into your prose. I would prefer using a poetic line as inspiration, but that is not the prompt! So, do make certain you give attribution for the line and the poet.

For Prosery, your prose—fiction or nonfiction—may be up to 144 words, not including the title. Some people like to make it exactly 144 words, but that is not required. You must not alter the words, change the word order, or insert words into the line. However, you may change the punctuation.

As I write this, we had a lull in winter, a taste of spring, almost summer, in fact. The temperatures were in the 70s F during mid-day and even reached into the 80s. Our snow finally melted, the crocuses are blooming, and the daffodils are starting to emerge. Today, we may get snow. Sigh.

I could have chosen so many lines from this poem, but here’s the one I finally decided on:

“It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.”

From
“Winter-Lull” by D.H. Lawrence
https://poets.org/poem/winter-lull

The poem, first published in 1919, may allude to WWI. It seems timely now, even as we approach spring.

D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885-1930) was better known as a novelist, but his first published works were poetry. He was a controversial figure; several of his works were censored, most famously, his novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He and his wife, Frieda, had to leave England during WWI because it was believed his wife had pro-German feelings.

Lawrence was influenced early on by Ezra Pound and the Imagists but went on to pursue his own path.

“Lawrence believed in writing poetry that was stark, immediate, and true to the mysterious inner force which motivated it. Many of his best-loved poems treat the physical and inner lives of plants and animals; others are bitterly satiric and express his outrage at the puritanism and hypocrisy of conventional Anglo-Saxon society. Lawrence was a rebellious and profoundly polemical writer with radical views, who regarded sex, the primitive subconscious, and nature as cures to what he considered the evils of modern industrialized society.” https://poets.org/poet/d-h-lawrence

Lawrence died of tuberculous in France at age 44.

You don’t need to know anything about D.H. Lawrence to participate. Your Prosery piece does not have to be related to his poem at all—but it does need to follow the rules described above! 😊

If you’re new to dVerse. Here’s how to participate:

–Write a piece of prose, fiction or non-fiction, up to 144-words, incorporating the given line.
–Post your story on your blog and link back to this post.
–Enter your name and the link to your post by clicking Mr. Linky below (remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy).
–Read and comment on your fellow storytellers’ Prosery pieces. We all like to have our work appreciated. There will be a great variety of wonderful stories, I’m certain!

This prompt closes on Saturday, March 21 at 3:00 PM, Eastern Daylight Saving Time.