Poetry Workshop Prompt
Allentown Fair
A fair scam, I knew, but for $15, I belted
my favorite Sugarland song and nailed it.
My Idol moment: There I stood - my lucky black lace
top and grey Macy's clearance jeans, ripped with giant
holes through which the entire city of Allentown
could see my cat print underwear - and it was amazing.
The crowd of 40 cheered, only you ran off to the far corner
and braided your tzitzit by the arcade games, anything
not to listen to me sing. For another $10, I bought
the souvenir CD. We drove home silenty, the car reeking
of fairground cigarettes and grilled cheese on our clothes,
a smell that nauseated you but made my mouth water.
I dropped you off and knew we would break up tomorrow.
I believe that a poem should on its own and not feel like a prompt poem, but for what it's worth, the prompt was to write about a memory associated with an article of clothing and/or a food. The draft above needs significant work, but it's not bad for a 20 minute prompt.
Wow...three years of virtually no contact and Tom is still my fastest source of poetic inspiration. I've been trying to write an Ari-inspired poem, but the problem is that Ari is too good for a poem. Ari and I have life goals and values that are consistent, we share worlds and communities, we're the same people in public and private, communicate effectively, and support everything each of us do. A poem about Ari wouldn't have the same wry dysfunction and would feel too sappy. Great relationship = dreadful poetry, sadly. Even the poem I was trying about his quirks, like his tendency to wear jeans to every function of every formality, just felt overworked.
Yom Kippur was great. The services were fantastic and I've never connected to the liturgy and the readings like this before. I also had a random opportunity to do a mitzvah for a stranger, a woman I may never see again, which added another level of meaning to the holiday. The new year is off to a spiritual start.
One thing that didn't add a whole lot of spirituality to my holiday was the fasting. I did it, and I'll do it every year that I'm physically capable of doing so because I'm commanded to, but I realized this year that fasting does not make me spiritual. Fasting makes me dehydrated and tired. In some ways, fasting makes me less spiritual because I spent a non-trivial amount of time fantasizing about food, and I spent the entire closing service, which is supposed to one of the spiritually intense parts of the service, thinking about very physical concerns like nausea and concentrating on not passing out. I've heard a lot of people lately tell me that they find fasting on Yom Kippur to enhance their spiritual experience. I wasn't going to challenge them, these were all people I'd just met at Rutgers Jewish Experience (funny how now that I'm a student, some organization is suddenly willing to give me $300 and a free trip to Israel for things I'd been doing when I wasn't a student) and everyone is different, but a part of me kinda thinks the spiritual experience of fasting is overrated. In my 15 years of fasting on Yom Kippur, I have never spoken to any other person during the fast who was having a spiritual experience as a result of the fast. Everyone I've known has a physical experience with the fast, and usually complained about it.
Granted, many people are uncomfortable sharing their personal spiritual experience in casual conversation. So maybe they covered up their spiritual experience by complaining about their physical discomfort. One thing that's amazing about Highland Park is that wherever you go, from the non-traditional hippie minyan where I was today to the Modern Orthodox cookie-cutter "young people's shul" to the uber-stringent Chassidic schteeble, no one is embarrassed to share a spiritual experience. I absolutely love this town.
A fair scam, I knew, but for $15, I belted
my favorite Sugarland song and nailed it.
My Idol moment: There I stood - my lucky black lace
top and grey Macy's clearance jeans, ripped with giant
holes through which the entire city of Allentown
could see my cat print underwear - and it was amazing.
The crowd of 40 cheered, only you ran off to the far corner
and braided your tzitzit by the arcade games, anything
not to listen to me sing. For another $10, I bought
the souvenir CD. We drove home silenty, the car reeking
of fairground cigarettes and grilled cheese on our clothes,
a smell that nauseated you but made my mouth water.
I dropped you off and knew we would break up tomorrow.
I believe that a poem should on its own and not feel like a prompt poem, but for what it's worth, the prompt was to write about a memory associated with an article of clothing and/or a food. The draft above needs significant work, but it's not bad for a 20 minute prompt.
Wow...three years of virtually no contact and Tom is still my fastest source of poetic inspiration. I've been trying to write an Ari-inspired poem, but the problem is that Ari is too good for a poem. Ari and I have life goals and values that are consistent, we share worlds and communities, we're the same people in public and private, communicate effectively, and support everything each of us do. A poem about Ari wouldn't have the same wry dysfunction and would feel too sappy. Great relationship = dreadful poetry, sadly. Even the poem I was trying about his quirks, like his tendency to wear jeans to every function of every formality, just felt overworked.
Yom Kippur was great. The services were fantastic and I've never connected to the liturgy and the readings like this before. I also had a random opportunity to do a mitzvah for a stranger, a woman I may never see again, which added another level of meaning to the holiday. The new year is off to a spiritual start.
One thing that didn't add a whole lot of spirituality to my holiday was the fasting. I did it, and I'll do it every year that I'm physically capable of doing so because I'm commanded to, but I realized this year that fasting does not make me spiritual. Fasting makes me dehydrated and tired. In some ways, fasting makes me less spiritual because I spent a non-trivial amount of time fantasizing about food, and I spent the entire closing service, which is supposed to one of the spiritually intense parts of the service, thinking about very physical concerns like nausea and concentrating on not passing out. I've heard a lot of people lately tell me that they find fasting on Yom Kippur to enhance their spiritual experience. I wasn't going to challenge them, these were all people I'd just met at Rutgers Jewish Experience (funny how now that I'm a student, some organization is suddenly willing to give me $300 and a free trip to Israel for things I'd been doing when I wasn't a student) and everyone is different, but a part of me kinda thinks the spiritual experience of fasting is overrated. In my 15 years of fasting on Yom Kippur, I have never spoken to any other person during the fast who was having a spiritual experience as a result of the fast. Everyone I've known has a physical experience with the fast, and usually complained about it.
Granted, many people are uncomfortable sharing their personal spiritual experience in casual conversation. So maybe they covered up their spiritual experience by complaining about their physical discomfort. One thing that's amazing about Highland Park is that wherever you go, from the non-traditional hippie minyan where I was today to the Modern Orthodox cookie-cutter "young people's shul" to the uber-stringent Chassidic schteeble, no one is embarrassed to share a spiritual experience. I absolutely love this town.