shakespearemom

Here’s another writing activity, and it stems from what I’ve seen in most poetry. If you teach literature–and I do–or if you’ve had several literature classes–and I have–you’ll know the tendency in most poetry in our established canon involves several assumptions:

1. Most poetry isn’t funny.

2.  Most poetry is about lofty subjects, involving nature, mythology/religion, love, etc.

3.  Most poetry involves heroic ideal, heroes, and heroic events.

However, in the last century, poetry has become a bit different. Maurice Sendak and others have brought whimsy and humor back into it (although many poems which do not make the traditional canon are also humorous), and other poets have made poetry less heroic in general, more about ordinary people, sometimes even forgettable ones, if not for the poem about them (I think of Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”). 

Now it’s your turn. Think of someone or some situation which seems highly unlikely for a poem to be written about. Write a short “ode” to something that most would never consider worth writing about. Most of all, make it silly. Don’t try to be serious with it unless being serious makes it even sillier (think mock-heroic). 

Here’s mine, two poems about my kids:

Crystal, age 2

Two eyes, innocent

Looking up from limpid pools

Of maple syrup.

Brandon, Age 2

I knew a daredevil named Brandon

Who jumped off with nothing to land on.

He cut up his head

Till I thought he was dead,

He wouldn’t let me lay a hand on.  

I also have an anti-love poem:

Love

You say you cannot love me

But you do

I know you do

Every action you take

Says so

The screams in my phone 

Tell me you are thinking about me

The lipstick smeared 

On my brand new couch 

Shows how much you 

Care what I think.

My clothes piled 

On the front lawn

Make it clear

To the whole world

How deeply I have

Entered your soul.

The whole world can see…

Why don’t you? 

Got any anti-poetry of your own? Share it!

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