Writing Prompt #3

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Writing Prompt #3 (w/ J. Scott Brownlee)

Hey Button fans! With just a couple weeks left in the video and chapbook contests, we’re excited to feature another writing prompt to help you with your own writing. If you’re comfortable, please share what you write in response to the prompt in the comments below this post, and feel free to include it in your submission for either contest! You can check our previous prompts here.
Today’s prompt comes courtesy of former Button chapbook contest winner J. Scott Brownlee. For further inspiration, you can check out some of Brownlee’s work on the Button channel here and here. The prompt is as follows:

Frank O’Hara’s famous line “Someday I’ll love Frank O’Hara” has ignited a chain of responses from contemporary poets started by Roger Reeves and continued by myself and poets like Ocean Vuong. Write a poem about yourself that is also about your place in the world. Let its title be, “Someday I’ll Love (Insert Your Full Name).” This is the only rule to follow for this prompt. Be bold. Think big. Say something you’ve been afraid to say about yourself and your identity. For an example, check out Ocean’s poem “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” in The New Yorker.

Again, feel free to share whatever you write in response to the prompt in the comments below this post (you can use a pseudonym if you’d prefer, and your email address won’t be public). We look forward to seeing your work!

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J. Scott Brownlee is a poet-of-place from rural Texas. He is the author of the full-length collection Requiem for Used Ignition Cap (2015 Orison Poetry Prize) as well as the chapbooks Highway or Belief (2013 Button Poetry Prize), Ascension (2014 Robert Phillips Prize), and On the Occasion of the Last Old Camp Meeting in Llano County (2015 Tree Light Books Prize). Brownlee is a founding member of The Localists, a literary collective that supports writing focused on working class life. You can learn more about him at www.jscottbrownlee.com.