writing prompt: learning disobedience

Find a copy of Animal Eye.  Read it and savor.  Photocopy the first poem.

Or find it here: "Why Some Girls Love Horses" by Paisley Rekdal.

Peel it apart if you so desire.  Ask questions like:  What is the relationship of the speaker to is subject?  Do you get the sense that the horse is personified (perhaps a bad word--maybe ask if the horse is a character or--) or is it more of a portraiture (an object)?  How does the poet use action to lead us to the concluding lines?  What are the sensory images that stand out most to you? 

Or go straight to the prompt, which, I would say, could be:  write a poem that is about "the image / of the one who taught me disobedience / is the first right of being alive."  Add in that the students certainly don't have to write about "the one" as a person or even an animal--this could be an experience, or a place, or something else that evokes that first memory of disobedience.

Another option:  Write a poem that reflects "the livingness" of something.