Writing Prompts: Things to Do Around . . . (#2)

Hey, we've been here before!  "Things to do around Seattle" and "Things to do Around a Ship at Sea" both by Gary Snyder, were a hit six months ago when we first looked at his poems as a prompt.  This time around, we take a different spin on it by utilizing the real and the imagined in writing about the things to do around _____.

First Mentor Poem

​Hear Chris Martin read "Things to Do in Hell" here

Chris Martin, "Things to Do in Hell." Copyright © 2019 by Chris Martin. 
Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/149081/things-to-do-in-hell

Poem Prompt #1:

Imagine yourself in an abstract place, a frame of mind, in a piece of music, a favorite place in a novel, wherever . . . and write about the things to do there.  Write this poem for 10 minutes.  Ready?  Go!      
​

Second Mentor Poem

Ted Berrigan, “Things to Do in New York (City)” from The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan. 2005
Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55276/things-to-do-in-new-york-city

Poem Prompt #2

​Pick a real, tangible, specific place and explore all the things to do there – physical and metaphysical.  Real and imagined. Write this poem for 12 minutes. Ready? Write!

More,  Please

​This poem can be seen as the "anti things to do" poem.

Don't Ask/1980BY JAYNE CORTEZ
 
Don't ask me
who I'm speaking for
who I'm talking to
why I'm doing what I do in
the light of my existence
 
You rise you spit you brush you drink you
pee you shit you walk you run you work
you eat you belch you sleep you dream &
that's the way it is
 
In the morning
tap water tasted fishy
coffee sits in its
decaffeinated cup
caca & incense
have a floating romance
& a stale washcloth
will make you smell
doubly stale
so don't get kissed on the cheek
don't get licked on the neck
 
at 8 a.m.
the trains & buses are
packed with folks farting
their bread & butter farts
the gymnasium
is dominated
by the stench of
hot tennis shoes
& one in the locker room 
a few silly-talking
intellectual-looking
coke-drinking
cloth-dropping
paper-littering
spinach-pooting
smug arrogant women wait to
be waited on
 
& in another locker room
there are odors of
crotches & jock straps
bengay, tiger balm
& burning balls
sweat socks & sweat suits
of body-building
door-slamming
iron-pumping
phlegm-hawking men
all sour & steamy
& wrapped up together
in a swamp of
butt-popping towels
but don't let it
get you down
don't let it
psych you up
 
Outside the ledges are
loaded with pigeons
clouds are seeded with
homeless people &
lyricism of the afternoon
in a sub-proletarian madman
squatting & vomiting
from his bowels
a brown liquid of death
in front of your house
 
& it's not happening because of you 
those socks don't stink because of me
a bureaucrat is not a jerk because of us
I'm not this way because of them
you're not that way because of me
don't ask about influences
 
You rise you spit you brush you drink you
pee you shit you walk you run you work
you eat you belch you sleep you dream
& that's the way it is
 
Jayne Cortez, "Don’t Ask/1980" from On the Imperial Highway. Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/90811/don39t-ask-1980