Year of the Horse Writing Contest: May Prompts

As in the past few months, this month there is no word limit for your entries. HOWEVER, we are also looking for haiku entries, if you are so inclined. The triggers for this month are lines taken from the following two texts:

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Out of stock

Bamboo Ridge Issue 84

1. you dare go against me?
2. like Papa used to say
3. I’m sorry, really sorry
4. all went well at the wedding
5. he had quite a reputation
6. no, no, no, no!
7. Daddy would never hear of it
8. he had already forgiven her
9. From “Koi Pond”:

Even during his illness, Seijiro Kikuta said to his wife, Kame, “Land is everything. Hold on to it if you can.” The land would save them. It always gave back what you put into it. “The land is for the children,” he said. “They’ll come back to it, you’ll see.”

But the children didn’t want the land. They hated the place. In the first place they couldn’t wait to get away, go to college and look for jobs elsewhere. Now, they were all professionals, living in big cities. “What can we do with the land?” the children said. “We don’t want it, sell it. Come and live with us in Honolulu.” Or “Come and live with us in L.A.”

Disheartened by his children’s audacity — for hadn’t he worked hard for their sakes? — Seijiro decided to live out his life in the only place he knew. Children, he thought to himself, were thankless in the end.

Sale

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Hoʻolulu Park and the Pepsodent Smile

$15.00 $10.05

1. Hurricane Iwa had struck during my senior year in high school and Iniki had been much stronger.
   From “Beautiful Kawai,” by Danelle Cheng
2. take root and blossom forth in native soil
   From “Press Down,” by Keith Kalani Akana
3. familial protection
   From “Of Chestnut Kings and Faerie Queens,” by Margo Berdeshevsky
4. talk about a Kodak moment
   From “Over the Falls,” by John Clark
5. your order of raw fish, I hate to correct you, is really “sashimi,” not “sushi”
   From “Eratta,” by R. Zamora Linmark
6. it feels like I am always dreaming of your coming and going
   From “How Memory Enters,” by Jennifer Santos Madriaga
7. all the mangoes and papayas you could eat
   From “Beautiful Ilocano,” by Noel Abubo Mateo
8. see but don’t touch
   From “Tomoe Ame,” by Mavis Hara
9. From “Toyo Theater Samurai,” by Nealson Sato:

For Hiro and me, Saturdays were magical reprieves from the universe of Miss Fujikami, Mrs. Silva, and the other 40-year DPI (later DOE) veterans at Kalihi Waena Elementary. No spelling tests were given on Saturdays, no Weekly Reader discussed, No Science in Action reviewed. No one had detention in Mr. Robello’s office and no one got beat up by Yolanda Ah Sing.

Instead, on these Saturdays, we would go over to each other’s house. I preferred going over to his house because his family was rich. His father worked at Pearl Harbor and, according to my mother, he must have made a lot of money because Hiro’s mom didn’t have to work. Whenever I went over to Hiro’s, she was always cleaning the house, sewing, or making something good for us to eat and giving us Double Cola or Dairyman’s ice cream sandwiches, the kind that my sister would buy after school at Yama’s Market if we had money. My father and mother would both be working on Saturdays, and at my house we were lucky if we had Exchange orangeade or ice cake made from Kool-Aid and Jell-O. Even at Halloween, while my house gave out bubble gum, butterscotch, or the tiny box of Chiclets that had two pieces in it, Hiro’s mom handed out real-sized Baby Ruth or Snickers. All the kids made sure they trick-or-treated at Hiro’s house.

Use one of the prompts to trigger your piece AND if you use one of the lines in your piece, your mojo is strong : )

Good luck to you, and write like there’s no tomorrow : )