Poetry Invite to Write 1-9-23

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Tue, 03/12/2024 - 5:10pm

ARASBenjamin

Here is the image for this month's invite to write:

Our image for this month is castle.

Castles are fortresses and sometimes homes. Serving as a lest refuge from danger behind thick stone walls, moats, and drawbridges. Throughout medieval and ancient times, to control a castle was to control the land that surrounds it.At the same time, the castle serves to isolate, emphasizing one's distance from the outside world. This brings to mind the problem of security, the more you do to ensure it, the more you distance yourself from others. This isolation can lead to decay and madness. The castle is an assertion of power, dominating a landscape and its residents. Now, many castles lay hollowed out as a symbol of the fall of this longtime reality of everyday life for many, instead the castle lives on in the world of symbols and art. That said, the architecture of the castle still looms large in how power is projected architecturally in civic buildings, homes, and prisons. The castle in many ways looms large over us still.

Reflect on these projections of power in architecture and the pull of medieval architecture on our contemporary interaction with symbols. What do castles symbolize for you? Perhaps the plain description of an imagined castle may bring insight.

Happy writing!