30 days of prompts: day 4

& my favorite poetry collections

Happy Thursday, folks.

Here’s what I have for you today:

• The prompt

• Some books I love

• Tweets (Many tweets—open this email in a new tab to get to the end)

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Day 4: Prompt

Write an origin poem.

Now, this kind of poem can look like a self-portrait (yesterday’s prompt)—but it can also look very different. It might recount an experience that made you who you are, or it might look back at family history. It might be a persona poem and take on the voice of someone you knew, or a celebrity, or a literary character.

Here are some examples:

• Origin Story, Jenny Xie

• Origin Story, Karin Gottshall

• Mississippi: Origins, Anna Journey

• Remember, Joy Harjo

• Creation Story, Keith Ratzlaff

• Only Half, Marissa Ahmadkhani

• Skin, Marissa Ahmadkhani

• Triple Sonnet for Leaving My Country of Birth, Rachael Lin Wheeler

• Taxonomy of the Ex-Lover, Ellie Black

Extra credit:

Use the words “call me” in one of your lines.

Here are some (more) examples:

call me flower or desert

-Yesenia Montilla

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Call me and tell me that Paris is on fire at last,

that the queens of Harlem can have their operations

and their washing machines. Call me seamless,

call me sir. Call me tomorrow’s inevitable sunrise.

-Oliver Bendorf

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Call me bloodcurse, fair hair shriveled

& sprouting teeth, stain across the temple

floor.

-Torrin A. Greathouse

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If you must call me, call me Earth,

call me Chipmunk, call me Woolen Scarf—

call me Wind Chime crafting turbulence.

-Katie Kemple

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Call me Colorado. Call me sunset. Lafayette,

Erie, sinister: O left hand, O hand raised

& lowered. Call me bottle on the ground

& I'll call it a gift.

-Ellie Black

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& here are some of (!) my absolute favorite poetry collections ever ever.

Really, this is an abridged list. But you should check these out, if you haven’t read them already:

• My Alexandria, Mark Doty

• Crush, Richard Siken

• Beginning with O, Olga Broumas

• Please, Jericho Brown

• Rose, Li-Young Lee

• The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Gabrielle Calvocoressi

• Loose Woman, Sandra Cisneros

• Boy with Flowers, Ely Shipley

• Houses Are Fields, Taije Silverman

• Beautiful in the Mouth, Keetje Kuipers

• The Alphabet Conspiracy, Rita Mae Reese

• The Glass Crib, Amanda Auchter

• Paradise, Indiana, Bruce Snider

• Keeper, Kasey Jueds

• Landscape Portrait Figure Form, Dean Rader

• Teratology, Susannah Nevison

• No Acute Distress, Jennifer Richter

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Tweets:

oatmeal influencer @acechhh

we are in the ultimate hell timeline scrolling through tweets about roe v wade being overturned and then like cara delevingne painted in gold

Despy Boutris @itsdbouts

also. i designed a shirt & all proceeds go straight to the National Network of Abortion Funds. shop here: bit.ly/3yaEZKD

slorote @slorote

Growing up poor makes you cheap in the funniest ways. Anyways gotta force myself to buy an umbrella

tara @tarathecommie

“Birthing bodies” is so dehumanising what level of liberal semantics hell is this

Sarah Lazarus @sarahclazarus

breaking: man who once refused to split the cost of plan b with me has something to say about this whole roe situation

Sturgeon's Law @Sturgeons_Law

“Birthing bodies” is one of the ugliest attempts at inclusive terminology I’ve ever heard. Sounds like something from a dystopian sci-fi

a beautiful woman.. 👄💕🦷✨ @tamagotchimilf

hung out with my boyfriend’s mom for too long. was like damn i love this bitchhhhhhhh we’re like LITERALLY the same person.. then i was like ohhhhhhhhhhhh

🏴🦝 Antifa Trash Panda - Pro Abortion 🦝🏴 @kittystryker

Chappelle "joking" that the person who assaulted him was a trans man when it was in fact some pro Trump dude who hated Chappelle for completely unrelated reasons is really fucked up and I'm tired of people acting like his transphobia isn't spiteful at this point tbh

Jeff Sharlet @JeffSharlet

Few days shy of 50 and when I ask my super goth 13-year-old what they're listening to they tell me it's a band I probably don't know called The Cure.

trash jones @jzux

imagine your roommate eats the plums you were saving for breakfast and then writes a bitchy little poem talking about how good they were. and then it becomes one of the most famous poems of all time

manufactured heaven @k8bushofficial

going to start wearing a shirt that says "i believe you're queer" for married cis women who really need me to know

rishi mahesh @rishipuff

im like actively crying

status annoyicus @medburnbook

“Nobody likes abortions.” I do actually. I like that people don’t die from ectopic pregnancies or sepsis from missed abortions. I like that people don’t have to bear the pregnancy of their abuser. I like that people get to make choices about their body.

𝓗𝓮𝓷𝓷𝔂💸 @ilyhndrxx

When she just shaved and u getting pricked by that cactussy😩😩😩

danielle weisberg @danielleweisber

if it’s possible I would love to be living through less history. fewer history if I could

Jessica DeFino @jessicadefino_

kim kardashian starving herself for 3 weeks and bleaching her hair for 14 hours to look that boring is a pretty great representation of mass beauty culture

matt @mattxiv

i would like to reiterate: the idea that all anti-gay people are secretly gay themselves is 1) usually just based on homophobic stereotypes and 2) makes queer people responsible for our own oppression, which we are not

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I’ll see you tomorrow with a new prompt!

&, as always, catch me here:

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Sending love—

-Despy Boutris