Flashback
Definition: Flashback is a literary device wherein the writer/ author depicts the occurrence of specific events to the reader, which have taken place before the present time the narration is following, or events that have happened before the events that are currently being unfolded in the story.
Flashback devices that are commonly used are past narratives by characters, depictions and references of dreams and memories and a sub-device known as authorial sovereignty wherein the author directly chooses to refer to a past occurrence by bringing it up in a straightforward manner. Flashback is used to create a background to the present situation, place or person.
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| Please visit this Source for more insight into using flashbacks in writing. |
You can see flashbacks used very often in movies. For example, it is common in movies for there to be a flashback that gives the viewer a look into the character's life when they were younger, or when they have done something previously. This is done to help the viewer better understand the present situation. Source
Our challenge today is to incorporate the element of flashback narrative into a poem. This could be based on real experience or entirely imaginary, but it should have a purpose in creating the emotional mood or background to the present situation depicted. As always, with prompts of this nature, I have no clear idea how this should be done in poetry, but I am looking forward to all the innovative ideas of those who choose to participate.
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19 comments:
Thanks, Kerry, for providing today's mental victual ... A fine delicacy! I post something that follows the sense that we carry on this work standing on tall, ancient shoulders. Older than we think ... Best to all, and I look forward to reading and happily falling through your temporal worm-holes!
Wow, flashback inside a poem! No haiku this time. This will demand both a current story and a flashback within it. But I love writing poems like that!
Kerry--I don't know that this is right. I actually thought Margaret's post was a prompt, so I wrote about NYC in the 70's, but since it is based on my experience, it is a flashback of sorts but not rooted in the moment of now.
Anyway--I think there is something wrong with my brain of late--I am actually a little concerned--so I'm sorry to have flubbed my understanding but I hope this works due to the memory aspect k. (I will try one with a genuine flashback.) K.
Karin, you are one up on me... My brain is totally numb and I have not a single poetic line about me. We are in the middle of term testing, so I'm up to my eyeballs in assessment tasks. Reading the poems is my only release from mental bondage, at the moment.. writing.. a distant possibility.
Flash back, beautifully portrayed! :)
Hi Kerry, I know you will stay on top of the testing and grading. I hope you have a few holiday days after. I always said that summer holiday was the best part of teaching, followed by Spring Break, Christmas Holidays, memorial type days off (Bank Holidays for you?), etc.
I did a fun write for you today, a little present, flashback with two different memories, more present, and then ended with future thoughts.
Thank you, I would not have written this one without your prompting. :)
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Kerry, what a challenge...love it!!
Oh, if only I could work this into a haiku for Shay!
Great challenge, Kerry. And MZ, I have done my best to work this into a short form just to drive Shay into a frenzy. (But sadly, not a haiku.) I hope it meets the criteria for the cinematic sort of flashback--a snapshot of a past experience that explains something in the present. Will be back to read after chores.
if you can believe it, this poem has been working on me for a long time, demanding (with various stomps and whinnies) to get out and on the page. so thank you, Kerry! :)
I've probably botched the true spirit of this challenge, but thanks anyway for the chance to share my poetry here.
Cool prompt. Flashbacks - my life is ALL about flashbacks!!!!
Laffin @ my co-authors ganging up to torment me.
Inspiring.
I have put mine in - hopefully I understood - thanks Kerry ~ smiles
Wonderful prompt. Played with internal slant rhyme, so subtle at times that it won't hit you over the head like the rest of the poem.
So rich the places memory takes us. Thanks, Kerry.
So sorry you are so busy! I don't honestly know how you do all you do. K.
This was tricky...thank you, Kerry, for the mental miles...a verbal workout on the word-processing treadmill today. :)
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