Here is the prompt as it was given to me
Saturday 4/3
“Ode to Sitting in a Booth” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s poetry delights in the many muses of the animal world. Indulge in some casual research about a favorite wild creature; imagine what possibilities its habitat might hold out to the human imagination. Let wonder lead you through this poem.
Bonus: If you’re feeling stuck, try emulating this seven couplet structure, and consider how the conventions of a sonnet might help to contain your wonder.
If you choose to indulge in the prompt or simply revel in the photo of an otter in a cave, I’m with you.
I chose to indulge in the concepts of home and survival and late-stage capitalism by personifying animals and animalizing persons. I’m very pleased with how this poem came out (it’s one of two that I wrote while waiting for my son to give me a ride home from the sleep clinic at 6 am). So gratitude for the poetry prompt (and the groups that spawn them), and to the amazing sleep technician David who found me paper and pen (which in a pre-covid world might have seemed insignificant but under current constraints was not) and to my son, for dragging his sleepy ass to get me from whatever corner of the world I may have wandered off to.
Poem available for patrons. Follow me on Patreon.
Poem submitted to _______
Poem published at _______
(if the above blanks are blank, then I haven’t been doing my job at 1-submitting the beauty in question or 2-updating you on the progress)
One thought on “Prompted: muses of the animal world”