2010 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 11
For today’s prompt, take the phrase “No One Wants (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write…
For today's prompt, take the phrase "No One Wants (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem. Possible titles include: "No One Wants to Tell the Truth," "No One Wants to Save Their Money," "No One Wants to Write a Sestina," etc. I hope everyone is ready to write a poem today!
Here's my attempt:
"No one wants to suffer"
Take this hand and hold it close to your face;
say my name if you can still remember;
who visits you now? Your life is a game
of waiting to escape and to wander
into the forest and then disappear.
Like magic, you conceal your secrets and
smile while inside you can't wait to perform
your next trick. I have seen this show before
and wonder if this is the path I've been
traveling too. Who will visit me? What
will I scheme as my roommate falls asleep
and shits herself, as the nurses calmly
wait? Take this hand and hold it; let it guide
you through these locked doors and into the woods
where nature has been waiting to claim you.
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Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer
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Check out Frederick Smock's Craft-Talk: On Writing Poetry. In short essays that are themselves lyric, Smock presents his own insights on the craft of poetry, as well as nuggets from other practitioners past and present.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
