by Carolee Sherwood
Not like that. Shame on you!
Consider three pieces of your life: three towns, three people, three favorite traditions, three rooms, three body parts, three hobbies, three hats. You could even go crazy and mix it all up, picking one piece from different “categories.” Write a single poem about all three. Try to work from concrete pieces — things that can be touched, seen, smelled, heard or tasted. The connections between them may be abstract (or not) but start with three actual “things.”
It would be great if you picked these pieces randomly. Allow serendipity to have its way with you and your poem! You could brainstorm a list of pieces, close your eyes and point to three or write each piece on its own slip of paper and pull three out of a bowl. (If you want, there’s no reason you can’t do more than three, but do at least three.) If it works for you, free write about the first piece until something links it with the second and then to the third (trusting free association) and eventually pull a poem out of the free write.
If you want to collaborate, you can e-mail another poet and choose parallel pieces (both of you write about an eighth grade dance or your first apartments). Then each of you can write a stanza about your own piece and then work together in some way to create a third stanza.
You can offer up your pieces to other poets, and you can throw caution to the wind and write about somebody else’s pieces. If you’d like to collaborate in this way, leave your list of three pieces in the comments section of this post (lists only, please; no commentary so that we don’t unduly influence the free association of others).
No matter how you play around with this prompt, I believe its strength comes from the juxtaposition of three “as-random-as-possible” parts of your life. Remember, it is necessary to fall to pieces!
A plea: Jill and Dana have really cool sign-offs when they post prompts. (Jill concludes her posts with “Keep on poem-ing,” and Dana ends with “Poem on!”) I am the Katie Couric of Read Write Poem. I have no sign-off, and I’m asking the public for its help. I’m looking for something that plays on words about writing or poetry and brings in my Polka-Dot Witch identity.
I am not opposed to something tacky or cliche. Feel free to post your ideas in the comments section here. Sadly, there is no prize for the winner. I’ll credit the sign-off author initially, but please give me only the ideas you’re willing to allow me to use liberally without attribution if the sign-off sticks. Thank you!
I keep trying to think of a cool sign-off, but I got nothin’. I’m sure someone will come up with something cool.
I think it’s hard to find something short that incorporates both concepts – but maybe that’s because sometimes rhyming’s a witch.
you can ask us to “make poetry magic” or “make magic with your poems”
Ok, this is corny, but it’s all I’ve got:
Connect your poem dots
Ride the poem broom
Zoom on your poem broom
and from Macbeth…..
Double, double toil and trouble
Polkadot says poem bubble!
I’d like it if you worked the word bewitch in there. Or something about casting a spell on our writing. Or something.
(Christine, ride the poem broom sounds sexay! Too hot for prime time.)
Because of Macbeth, I tend to associate witches with strange brews, so how about “brew up some poetry”? Poems do very much resemble spells or charms, I think, but I can’t think of a way to work that into a pithy sign-off.
I wanted to say, though, that this is a good prompt. I can still remember when I discovered the power of non sequitor, around the age of ten. It was like discovering the little man behind the curtain of poetic revelation – itself a revelatory experience.
[...] Written in response to a ReadWritePoem challenge. [...]
How about this for a sign-off.
’spotted; flying fingers’
Rose
xo
LOL on the broom, Ceridwin. I’m a little slow sometimes…
I’ll get you, my pretties, and your little poems. too.
Don’t let the house hit you on your way out.
(Bubble, Bubble, Poems Double?)
Make monkeys fly?
Create beautiful wickedness?
I GOT IT!
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE POEM!!!!!!!!!
i was thinking like dogfaceboy…
i’ll get you my pretties, and your little poem, too
bring me the poem! (doesn’t she say to the monkeys, “bring me the girl?”)
now, go on and scare up a poem.
I think Leslie has a winner there with “There’s no place like poem”
D
I agree. There’s no place like poem!
I’m voting for “Now, go on and scare up a poem.”
something wicked this way comes
(also from those Macbeth witches)
there are many great ideas here! thank you.
the last one i had “reached” for before i issued my plea was: “now get to your cauldrons and stir something up.” one or two of these was similar. that either means it’s the right way to go or the way not to go. hhmm.
i like the “spell” concept — but i only get the corny “how do you SPELL magic? p-o-e-m.” i know there’s more to be said on spells. or maybe potions …
“something wicked this way comes” has a special place in my heart not just b/c of macbeth but mostly ray bradbury. is “something wicked this way poems” a stretch?
or if i go with the popular and catcy “there’s no place like poem” should i add something: “there’s no place like poem (you’ve had it in you the whole time)” –or whatever that quote is from glenda the good witch …
i think we’re getting some place with this! any more thoughts as this evolves?
p.s. don’t judge me but my mind was in the gutter with the broomstick thing immediately.
I’m posting my three pieces in case anyone wants to use them in some way:
first orgasm
first death
first fear
Also, I like “now get to your cauldrons and stir something up,” and I do think “something wicked this way poems” is a little bit of a stretch.
I still like mine best. “There’s no place like poem.” She’s the good witch, anyway!
As for this poem, I wrote something vedddy interesting from the “first orgasm” prompt. You got me all nostalgic for Mickey blotter. I’m trying to work something with that, my daughter’s whistling, and maybe knitting or breaking things. They turn into three separate poems, joined at the end, and I’m not sure I like it that way.
I think the orgasm poem works by itself, with tweaks (hahaha).
Here’s something(s) an ad-firm would think up:
Make magic.
***
Make magic, make a poem.
***
Poetry spells us.
I do think I am most fond of “There’s no place like poem.” It’s an incantation!
I think something like Abracadabra!
would be the way to go – how about -
GoReWriPo!
i think we’re down to three:
1) “now get to your cauldrons and stir something up”
2) varations on “there’s no place like poem” … such as (a) “there’s no place like poem” (by itself); (b) “there’s no place like poem [you've always had the power]“; (c) “close your eyes, tap your heels together three times and think to yourself: there’s no place like poem.”
3) and new ones which may delight only me: “now be gone, before somebody drops a house on you, too.” (it has nothing to do with poetry or writing, though.) and “only bad witches are ugly.” … “there are no ugly poems. only bad witches are ugly.” ??
[...] your poem on” day there. go see! everyone’s writing this week about a prompt i created: playing with your pieces. Filed under: read write poem | Tags: read write [...]
[...] week’s Read Write Prompt. That is, I wrote three poems on three different pieces of my life, as The Polka Dot Witch suggested, but I wasn’t able to get past one of the pieces I chose, which was “first [...]
My vote:
“only bad witches are ugly.”
A little non sequitor does the body good.
[...] week’s Read Write Poem prompt was a tough one for me – and judging from the first couple of posts there, I wasn’t the only [...]
three…
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