Collapsing the Phenomenal: An Incredibly Rad and Deceptively Simple Prompt for Poets 

1.     Go outside. 

a.     If you’re unable to go outside, find the nearest window. 

b.     If there is no window, conjure a window in your mind. 

2.     From your place outside, or at your literal or conjured window, observe the following:

a.     sights

b.     sounds

c.     smells

d.     taste

e.     touch

3.     Comingle these sensory impressions with the other thoughts and feelings that you’re experiencing, such that the flash of a cardinal’s wing becomes fused with the thing your beloved said yesterday, or the sound of branches in the wind sits next to your worry about what life holds for you next week. The goal here is juxtaposition, and, via juxtaposition, the unexpected, the unified field, time travel. 

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E. G. Cunningham was born in South Carolina and grew upin Italy and Florida. She is the author of the full-length poetry collections Field Notes (River River Books, 2025), Ex Domestica (C&R Press, 2017), and two chapbooks, Apologetics (FLP, 2017) and Oranges for Venus (Tilted House, 2024). Her work has appeared in The Abandoned Playground, Colorado Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Nation, Poetry London, The Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol, Southern Humanities Review, ZYZZYVA, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Georgia. Read more about her writing and music at egcunningham.com.