For our theme this week, I took the suggestion of Lee McAden Robinson and proposed that we use as starting point the penultimate line of C. D. Wright’s poem “Dust”: “I have seen myself in the black car.” It’s a wonderful line, an excellent opener, as a fortnight of entries has proved. I specified a 10-line limit, but this structure was cheerfully violated by many, your quizmaster included.
Of the numerous fine pieces turned in, I would award first prize to Michael C. Rush (which is splendidly confrontational in the tradition created by Rilke’s “you must change your life”) and second place to Courtney Thrash (who repeats the crucial line in her final stanza, a nice touch):
Michael C. Rush
In The Black CarI have seen myself in the black
car. How can you not see yourself
in the black car, driving, riding, pulled over,
questioned, lectured, threatened,
assaulted, shot? In the black car
followed by the white-and-blue,
eyes widen in the rear view
and history plays on the radio.
If you don’t see yourself in the black car,
what’s wrong with you?from The American Scholar, May 30, 2017
including this new prompt:
For next week, I suggest a prompt derived from my reading of Margaret Atwood’s prose poem “Women’s Novels,” in which she sarcastically says, “I no longer want to read books that don’t end with the word forever.” It would be difficult to write a good poem ending with the word forever. Notwithstanding the danger, I say we meet it head on, steering clear of romantic cliché, in a poem ending with the word forever. Your poem can ignore the source of the prompt, can acknowledge it in some subordinate manner (e.g. Atwood’s line as an epigraph), or can actively discuss Atwood’s assertion. In my own effort (which I promise will be no longer than 14 lines), I expect to use the phrase “for fifteen minutes.”