Collage Poems

This weekend, I felt some of the panic of "Will I ever publish a book?" come back. I had a firm talk with myself and told myself that if writing wasn't going to be fun, I didn't have to do it. To get out of my funk, I did another batch of collage poems. They can be liberating because the point of them is not to be good; it is to be creative and childlike. The flavor of the poems depends on what materials you cut up to find words. In this case, the St. Louis Zoo newsletter provided some fun animal words. The minute I cut out "ass" (from an article about donkeys), I knew I wouldn't be able to take myself too seriously.

The poems are above in their original ransom-note form, but here's a transcription. And yes, they're centered in the middle--something any introductory poetry teacher will tell you not to do.

EgoDrug: high school
achievement, Oxford education.
Story of a writer
who gives up,
is gone…

O, smart ape—
crash and bloom,
write ashes and morning,
wind in branches.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Into the glass ocean:
Our red penguin
searches
for a strange pearl.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Foraging baboons:
banana doctors
learn lunch.

Name nature
and
the tough-ass goldfinch
mocks us.