The genesis of this poem is a pretty straight-forward but engaging writing exercise I picked up over the summer during a writers-in-translation training.
JUST SAYING
Read William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just to Say” out loud, write a poem in the same style, then share the poem to someone you know, then ask them to write you a response back in the style of Williams’ most trusted reader—his wife, Flossie.
Here is the first part, my riff off of WCW’s famous poem.
In Today’s News
An 18 yr old Latino
was shot
dead in
the streets.No one
else was
hurt in the
altercation.Police reports
indicate the
man was
most likely armed.