Writing Poetry Against My Will

I don’t write poetry, y’all. But a delightful writing group I’m a member of contains a wonderful and amazing poet. Her writing prompt this month was, “We’re gonna write some poetry.”

Wait. Say, what?

But I am nothing if not compliant. Usually that applies to medical instructions, PT exercises, and spiritual direction, but when a poet tells me to write, I write. (She, biased as she is, would probably say poetry is spiritual direction.)

So on this darkening day in New Orleans in a city known for its rolling thunder when even I concede the dog is not exaggerating how intimidating the approaching booms are, I share with you my stab at poetry:

Decorum

When New Orleans is overwrought 
with lipstick pink and powdered white and leggy lavender
crêpe myrtle trees 
untrimmed, we have an embarrassment of extravagance.
Don’t these people know
how to keep their exuberance 
in submission?

Yeah, it’s short but that’s poetry.

Share only supportive observations in the comments below. I will choose to take them all as sincere.

In signing off, through any and all circumstances, under duress or free-wheeling it, grumbling at the demands or soaring in an alternate universe of creation, remember: Happy Writing!

exuberance when writing poetry
The city can’t help itself, nor can I when writing poetry

crepe myrtles in new orleans, prose writer writing poetry, writing poetry

Comments (8)

    • Ellen Morris Prewitt

      Trees as people, people as trees, and the grumpy harumpher. Last summer we workshopped a story, arguing if the bugs are people or descriptive metaphors (they were bugs.) I didn’t think of entering, just how cool it is you are doing this! Flash prose, hmmmm

  • I especially love your use of alliteration in the second line. The line break between trees and untrimmed is very effective. I also appreciate your ending with a question, which is a time honored way to draw your reader into reverie.

    Yay for poetry!

    • Ellen Morris Prewitt

      Thank you! Thought of you poets when I posted this. Just bumbling along here. Also I don’t know if you noticed but after many requests to my administrator to make the links more visible, I discovered how to highlight them red!

    • Ellen Morris Prewitt

      TY! Under the poet’s writing group instructions, I had to write more than 1 if it was less than a page. So I wrote 3!

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