writer | teacher | artist
I've been helping teach an after-school poetry class for teens, and one of the assignments was a "found" poem (more of a cento) composed of song lyrics from artists each student chose. Students were also tasked with choosing from a long list of provided themes to focus their writing, and to come up with a picture (drawn or nabbed from the internet) to accompany their poems.
MAURA SANDERS was lying in a hospital bed waiting to die. At 24, she couldn't imagine a more terrible fate, but if she was honest with herself, she couldn't really imagine a better one either.
Limericks, as you likely know, are generally humorous, and the subject here is not. While this structure may seem like an odd choice for this poem, I think the rhythm and rhyme of it add to the tale, and perhaps the chaos of the main character's situation.
When Kenny shot Charlie, no one was really sure how to react. It wasn't because it was all that surprising — Kenny had had it out for Charlie since day one — but we didn't know whether to rejoice at the end of a feud or dread whatever was coming next.
“Where’s my cannoli?” a little voice behind me says.
The rod of the pool cue glided back and forth between Martin’s slim fingers as he surveyed the field before him: the odds were not in his favor.
I was married, once. She was French. Her names was Inès, and I suppose I should have known that any woman whose name means “chaste” (especially if she’s French) is destined to live ironically.
They say some days you get the bull, some days the horns, but the truth about moose hunting in Alaska is this: some days you get a whole lot o’ nothing.
It was on that first night in August when Lily Böhn tip-toed across the cobbles of Isola Bella to the Pier in her pink ballet slippers that she heard the gospel truth from Harvey Whittaker.
He was 26 and I was 18 when we met. I'm sure it took a few days for him to recognize me as a regular, since I rarely wear the same outfit or order the same drink twice at one establishment. But if he didn't remember me by the end of my first month at school, I'm sure he knew me by the time I showed up later that fall, soaked to the skin in my t-shirt and ill-fitting skinny jeans.
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum 