I took a class my last semester of grad school which really made me think critically about the idea of ‘home,’ and how I thought about places that felt like ‘home’ to me, even when they weren’t (strictly speaking) mine. Vermont feels like home, and Mexico, Ohio – home of my childhood, still the place I say is ‘home’ when asked. I’ve lived in Northern Virginia since 1996, but never felt it was home. Now that my husband and I are buying our first house, all of my poems are about houses and homes. I start out thinking I’m not writing about a sense of place, and circle back around.

For this week’s prompt, let’s encounter it by facing away. Write about home from the perspective of a place far away. Does it change how you see it? Are you suddenly a stranger to yourself?