When I was a kid and we’d go on picnics, my stepmom would often bring a very fancy salad. It was chopped broccoli, in a kind of mayo sauce with almonds and raisins. We loved it, and now it makes me recoil in horror. The raisins!
This prompt is maybe the opposite of those surprise raisins.
I found this great poem by Elissa Gabbert on twitter, and she shared this note about it: “I once heard someone say, If your poem's not working, put an ant in it.”
Random Assignment by Elissa Gabbert
It seems to want to rain but can’t.
It fades to pink, an argument.
Relinquish the dream.You can’t ever get what you want,
You can’t please any of the people
Any of the time.Time just lies there,
Not fast or slow,
Any more than a line.I wonder if the very small ants are afraid
Of the big ants, if they ever cross paths.
I wonder if happiness is ethical.I’d like to do it all again
In silence now, in darkness,
A wasp in a fig.
Prompt #16: Random Assignment
Find a poem, or notes toward a poem that isn’t working just yet. Add something to the poem - ants, raisins, Minecraft - to make it take an unexpected turn. If you need a particular random inspiration, grab something off your desk or out of a purse and put it in the poem.
If you’d like some more directions: use an imperative, and include a mangled idiom or song lyric.
If you want a formal constraint, write in tercets.
Sharing your work helps sustain momentum. I’ll leave the comments open, so you can share a poem title, a snippet of a line, or something else about your writing life.