An assignment for my poetry workshop this week is that each student bring in her worst poem ever. This is a difficult assignment for me since most of my poems are just awful, especially the four full-of-angst journals I've kept from those trying (but oh-so-fun!) undergrad years. I'm still not sure which poem I'm going to take to class tomorrow night--most of my older ones are a bit too personal and much too surly to share in decent company. I might go with something safe. Or I might say what the hell and take the ones with these stunning lines:
"Give me a fucking reason to love myself/ Because I can't if you don't" (2.08.06)
or
"I like boys and shoes/ though I've yet to find/ my perfect match in either" (2.10.06) '06 was a trying time in the love department, as you can see.
or
"I feel like an amalgamation/ of decisions others have made/ I'm no longer an autonomous self/ but a construct of contrived identities" (4.11.06) Can you tell I wrote this the semester I took intro to literary theory?
or
"I am a thinker and a writer/ A lover and a fighter" (6.26.07) For about a week after we discussed them in the NWPCA summer institute, I couldn't stop writing "I am from" poems.
Oh dear. How I have grown, both in my writing and in my emotional maturity. I think.
Got any awesomely bad lines to share?
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6 comments:
All you want is a line? Hell, I have a whole country song lyric...
Melveena’s Prayer
Sweet Jesus
I need me a good factory man
works three to eleven
with a good pension plan
no more’n two ex’s
with a Dodge pick up truck
might mow the yard
and is ready to…(pause)… pluck
me
from this oblivion
I am livin in.
(chorus)
I got me a longin
I would scorch a mean tater
get new eyelet draw-drapes
for this Barcraft trailer…
I want me a rat-tailed
metal press fabricator.
I’d pop out more babies
whip up microwave dinners
for one certifiable
wage-earnin sinner
with earplugs a dangling
from his rearview mirror.
Take the kids up to momma’s
I’m teasin my hair
and squeezin my ass into
red underwear.
Don’t need me some Waffle House
sausage link slinger
I crave me a man
who is missin some fingers.
(chorus)
I got wanton desire
I would deep-fry his tater
get faux-stone underpinning
for this Barcraft trailer
I want me a rat-tailed
metal press fabricator.
Gonna scoot these white
tasseled Ropers flat,
gonna play me some foosball
drink house beer on tap
‘til I’m smack
on my back
and holding back screams
with the second-shift
metal-fab man of my dreams.
All rite, but I am red faced just typing it. Blame it on my 8th grade self.
Cause you see
I am a goddess
And I would have taken off
my mask
for you.
Be sure to take appropriate dramatic pauses.
"in the place where you
were minutes before..
i open my eyes and
in a cloud of dust..
you were gone"
i know, right!?
i should write lyrics for hoobastank!
Abby! You've got a career in bab pop lyrics. I love you. I'll see you soon.
Hey Tim, I love the lines you left. Yeah, there's some growth in your wake, documented in poetry. I don't have that documentation, and I've only written one or two poems. I'll leave you with a few lines from one I wrote for my estranged father. We haven't spoken in a few years...
When I get to heaven
You’ll be the first one I look up.
I’ll wander those golden streets
Holding hands with angels ‘cause
Up there all they’ll be needed for
Is helping folks find their loved ones.
Mike
That second one should really be the opening line of a current Tim poem, a GOOD, non-howler Tim poem.
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