The poet realizes she has NEVER had an original idea...

This week's readwritepoem prompt was to cut up the words in a text (newspaper article, memo, anything), draw the words randomly, and write them down in that order. Then, we were to see what poem we could make with them. I used a memo about ordering textbooks for next semester as a vehicle for purging my poetic insecurities. The actual purge was less than successful, but I got this poem out of it. The words from the memo are in bold.


I’ve got that fraudulent feeling,
Like my work is nothing more than gum
On the bottom of a real poet’s shoe.

Like I’ve enrolled in a course
Without meeting the prerequisites.

Like the stanzas I send out into cyberspace
Have already been written,
Are in fact illegal adoptions,
Botched abortions,
Of select, sacred texts.

Like I’ve acquired my images by requisition,
Didn’t even say please,
For ideas illegally confiscated.

And soon,
I will be found out, punished.

Sentenced to a life term
At open mic night
In a bookstore coffee shop.
Where I am forced to read
My bastard verses
In an endless loop
To the English faculty from my alma mater
While I am naked
And they are clothed
In caps and gowns
And righteous disappointment.