Introduction to Poetry Prompt

One of the delights of picking up a new book of poetry is seeing how the poet made their poems. I picked up a copy of Deborah Pope’s WILD LIAR (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2023) yesterday, and was taken with her poem “Introduction to Poetry” (I also love poems titled “Modern Poetry”—something subversive about poetry doing its own education, as is right…):

Your poem prompt, then, is to write your own “Introduction to Poetry” course as a poem. Be as elliptical or abstract or factual or concrete as you want to be. Include some mystery. Love on an image. Go deep. My favorite lines above are “The trouble with poems is that they don’t care / what we want.” How true.

Here’s the poem I wrote this morning, thinking about the same title (which you can keep or simply use to write a poem!):

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIntroduction to Poetrylearning to fishfor the netin your handslonging a goalwhose distancenever closesopening a boxwith no beetleinsideworse than allthe furiesof the earthflying out

Happy Friday from the Weymouth Center and Southern Pines.

-Han