A PROMPT RESPOSE: # 706 big summer sale

Note: I'm going back and giving each prompt a number based on the date it was posted.

When I'm slow to get started on the writing of a poem, sometimes I'll use the old technique of beginning a statement with "Because…" or "And then…" and repeating until I have a page full of lines as raw material. Even though, in some instances, the poem would work leaving "Because" or "And then" at the start of each line, I usually wind up removing them.

For the #716 SPAM poetry prompt, I suggested writing 15 lines starting with "big summer sale" but added that you could write more or fewer lines--the 15 was an arbitrary number. The first thing that came to my mind when I wrote down "big summer sale" was the sidewalk sale they held at the mall (i.e., shopping center) where I hung out as a kid. I started writing, and when I'd run out of steam and began repeating myself, I went back and counted up 22 lines:

I removed "big summer sale" from the statements without reading them, then looked over the source material I had. I could have worked from that list as it was, but I decided to condense the statements into a paragraph:

I wasn't thinking about writing a prose poem necessarily; I just found it easier to organize my thoughts doing it this way. I then went through rearranging statements and crossing out those that were repetitious or that I thought would take the poem in a different direction from the one that was beginning to form:

From here I began to write and shape the poem. I let it cool over the weekend, did some tweaking, then completed the piece. I wound up taking out an entire stanza (about how we kids shopped at the sale) because the details weren't that intriguing and it detracted from the poem overall.

Here's what I determined was the "finished" poem for the purpose of posting it here as a response to the prompt. If this were a poem I planned to submit for publication, I'd let it cool for a few weeks and tweak some more.

A Map of the New York World's Fair 1964-65

The big sidewalk sale, festooned in colored pennants,

was a medicine show spread up and down

the open air sidewalks of Hyde Park Plaza.

It rolled out on a hot August Friday

and fleeced the shoppers until Saturday evening

with tables and bins spilling goods the merchants

had selected with an eye toward slashing their inventory,

or to whet the appetites of more discerning shoppers

who passed into the stores in search of something

that was worth spending money on.

Sometimes my mother purchased a generic,

utilitarian item at a discount--a pack of string dishrags

or a large bottle of aspirin. My father,

who believed an old promotional key chain

for a penny was found treasure, pawed enthusiastically

through the tangles of junk and was never disappointed.

He was especially proud of a dented cardboard tube

without a cap, something mysterious rolled up inside.

He paid a quarter. At home, he labored

with pliers and a butter knife until he'd extracted

an enormous map of the New York World's Fair.

It filled half the dining room table. We examined it

with a magnifying glass, reading the names

of pavilions and attractions, marveling at the

enormity of the exposition. None of us had ever

been to NYC, the fair closed in a few months,

but the map was as exotic as an atlas of Mars.

"And it only cost a quarter," my father repeated,

flushed and pleased. "I only paid a quarter!"

If you're interested, here's the stanza I deleted from the poem:

With change pried from our banks or doled from parents

who wanted us gone while they shopped for themselves,

we bulldozed through mountains of snagged sweaters

and mismatched flip-flops, desperate to mine gold

from cardboard cartons of yellowed coloring books,

from plastic trashcans brimming with cheap imitations

of the better toys we coveted. Before long

the ice balls and cold drinks hawked by the grocery

looked like a better deal for our cash.

--Nancy