by lisa marie basile
Every once in a while, our editor Lisa Marie Basile will offer up weekly writing prompts and exercises. Think of these as a doorway you can always walk through; here, you have permission to be strange and wild, to be expansive and dripping. If you do happen to write something based on our prompts, feel free to share and tag us on social media @lunalunamag. Check out our other prompts here.
These new prompts & exercises are designed for those who are entering the first doorways of autumn, a time of change in the natural world and within the self. Naturally, our creative states may change as well.
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In Ancient Rome, Janus was considered the god of the threshold, worshipped with wine and incense and often on the first day of each month. He presided over beginnings and endings, passages, transitional phases, gates, and times. Ancient Roman coins depicted him with two faces, one looking toward the past, one facing the future. He is to be called upon in the in-between. In duality, liminality. This world and the next. Scholars have said he is the “spirit indwelling in a material thing, the doorway.”
Write a letter to Janus, asking him to bless your doorway. But what is your doorway? What are you moving toward? What are you moving away from? How are you changing?
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Write a poem evoking Janus, utilizing phrases, images, and words that reference the threshold space: doorways, keys, day into night.
Is the creation of the poem itself a ritual? Is the poem itself the very transition from before to after, from idea to tangible thing? Can the poem be a prayer?
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Write a poem that begins with an ending & ends with a beginning. Does time loop back on itself in perpetuity?
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Write a poem that focuses heavily on the volta (or, the turn of the poem). This is where the poem changes direction or perspective, where a shift occurs. Focus on differentiating your language after the volta; you’ve passed the threshold now. What does the new world look like? How can the poem reflect that?
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Write a poem of katabasis; describe the journey through the threshold boundary and into the under/other world. What is the journey? Where are you going? Is it outside of place and time? When you return, how have you changed?
How might the poetic form/shape/sound reflect the journey?
Lisa Marie Basile is the author of a few books of poetry, including her most recent, SAINT OF (White Stag Publishing, 2025). Her work can be found in The New York Times, Catapult, Narratively, Tinderbox Poetry, Lover’s Eye Press, Tarpaulin Sky, Spork Press, Always Crashing, Best Small Fictions, and Best American Experimental Writing 2020. Lisa Marie is a recipient of the 2026 Individual Artist Fellowship by the Jersey City Arts & Culture Council. She holds an MFA from The New School in NYC and is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine.