Thursday, March 20, 2025

Writing Exercise 3

 From Ross Gay's website.

 It's called Mondays are Free (paid versions get daily writing prompts) here's the third free prompt: 

Write a poem that takes at least three cues (it could be the tone, the number of lines, an image, a sonic element) from Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” including—this one is mandatory!—the line, “what did I know, what did I know.”


I wasn't born to do this 

Work, pay bills, stress, die

I was born to wander, lost and found

Rocky paths, unmarked switchgrass underfoot

Yet here I remain, tethered to a desk


Panic stricken at losing a job I don't want

Nowhere to hide from a politician I didn't want

All to pay for things I do not want

What happens to you dictates your want


What did I know, what did I know

Youth wasted on meaningless jobs

Instead of wandering, writing and singing

Stay in the moment they say

I'm not ok but I'll be alright


So, this terrible poem was created on the spot, forgive me. I borrowed the number of lines, the tone (maybe) and the mandatory borrowed line.

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