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One of my favorite poems is “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House” by Billy Collins.
If you don’t know it, I’ll share a little here, but click the link and read the whole thing:
| The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark that he barks every time they leave the house. They must switch him on on their way out. The neighbors’ dog will not stop barking. and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra, |
I love it because it’s funny, and true and because I have totally had this experience, though maybe not with Beethoven.
So I thought it might be fun, as a way to get into writing poetry, to write a poem about something annoying.
What’s driving you nuts today? What has been nagging at you, irritating you, keeping you from being able to focus like a dog barking outside your window?
For me, it’s my ridiculously messy office.
If you’ve been here long you know all about my messy office and my multiple attempts to clean it up, only to get busy and cluttered and awful again.
I hope I can make time to work on it again soon, but for now it’s excellent poem fodder.
Here’s what I came up with:
The mess
in my office
is like working
in the wake
of a toddler
left alone all day
to play indoors.
Papers are stacked
upon books
upon yarn
upon yesterday’s lunch napkin
upon outgrown clothes
upon paper scraps
upon fabric
upon uncashed checks
upon my soul,
weighed down by so much.
And yet I must work
create
move on
even through the piles.
I don’t know if it will help me to have expressed my frustrations in words, but it at least temporarily made me feel better. All that mess is art now! (Ha.)
If you try this challenge I’d love to know what you wrote about, or feel free to share your poem in the comments.
