Grocery List

[kangels4ever]

Another revision:

While lost in a brown study
Over bad times in my life
I contemplate stacks
Of Cub Foods cupon fliers
Sitting oblivious to all human strife
Upon their ad stand
Touting the weeks savings
As all around me customers
Contemplate their shopping errands at hand.

I see in a tiny black shopping cart nearby
A crumpled sheet
I decide to pick up and read.

It says
All spelled out in neat cursive:

Vanilla
Pork chops center cut with bone
Broccoli
Grapes
Spinach
Bagels
Carrots

But oh how empty
Those words stand alone!

How about a list,
I decide,
That goes like this.

I turn it over and then
Into my hand
Up from my heart
Flows through my pen:

How can you trust
After being raped fifty times?

How can you loan
After being robbed a hundred?

How can you believe
After being betrayed a thousand?

I stuff it
Satisfied
Into the pocket
Of my black jeans
The list that now boasts
One whose words
Do not stand alone.

[Delta40]

It's certainly interesting. Is cub foods a list for boy scouts or something? I can only assume the list acts as a trigger to the person who picks it up. I do think there is a large leap between the list and the written response.

writing that 'no sudden thunderclap of revelation comes etc' is a bit telling and I would endeavour to paint the narrator's anticipation of such an event, or even imagine that it would happen.

This put me in mind of course of childhood sexual abuse and with some trimming could do well in any of those organsiations publications.

[kangels4ever]

This poem came about when I was working for a grocery store named Cub Foods. I found an actual list lying about in the exact type of shopping cart described and wrote on the back of it for real.
Thanks for the feedback.

[hillwalker]

In reply -

prose poem - I have my doubts this qualifies as a prose poem since there's nothing poetical here
as to the format - what is prose poem format anyway?

vivid - possibly : coherent - not so sure
it's a little too melodramatic and there's no visible link between one side of the shopping list and the other. You could just as easily have scribbled on the back of a parking ticket. Just because it happened in real life doesn't lend it any credence.

magazines in which this might fit - the only way is to send it out to as many poetry magazines as possible and hope someone finds it worth publishing.

H

[kangels4ever]

Again, fair enough.
If this were your poetic work, how would you fix what in your view are the flaws?

[kangels4ever]

As indicated above I have revised and re-posted this poem.
Does anyone here write "free verse" poetry? As I said in my re-post this is my first attempt at writing something in that poetic style, so pointers from experienced writers of it is welcome.

[Delta40]

Does anyone here write "free verse" poetry?

I had to look free verse up! I'm uneducated in terms of meter and syntax so if that means my writing is free verse, then I guess it is. I like the no holds barred option of writing this way and from a technical standpoint, I am grossly ignorant!

[hillwalker]

Free verse is always considered easier to write than most poetic forms because you don't need to use strict rhyme or regular meter (supposedly).

However, by necessity every word has to count - and the sounds of each phrase and how it fits within the rest of the poem has to be taken into account.

This poem is unfortunately still too prosey - especially the opening verse. There's no reason given why the note beckons you to write anything down so it comes across as a rather awkward metaphorical device - and why does it matter that it was a 'Cub Foods' trolley? Unless it's relevant such irrelevant detail is better left out.

I liked the final stanza by the way but it's too great a leap from a list of groceries to that final note of despair. Unless you can somehow tie the two together there's always going to be a huge gulf of belief that the reader is expected to bridge. Most, like me, will fail.

H

[kangels4ever]

@ hillwalker: is the two tied together now?

[Delta40]

The revised version is better but I think the first stanza is explanatory more than anything else - in case the reader doesn't grasp what you're writing about. Hill knows alot more about prosey poems (for which I am regularly accused but there is no law against either!) Every word does count though so that is why I am commenting on the first stanza. This poem could really start with:

At the supermarket,
I find a crumpled shopping list
and read it.

or something similar. You would have provided the beginning in a few short words.

You also don't need to write: It says in small neat cursive more so than you discover it is a shopping list.

How empty those words stand alone is good and you can then turn it over in your hand and write your new list (exclude the word decide and just do the action in your poem because it has a more showing than telling effect)

I really like the idea of your poem - a crumpled old grocery list transformed into your own personal list of unanswered pain

[hillwalker]

@ hillwalker: is the two tied together now?

No.

Because you've now included a new opening verse that is irrelevant and almost like a prologue written in prose. Ok, it might have led you to the idea for the poem in the first place, But it is needless background material. The reader couldn't care less WHERE you found the list!!

The whole point of the poem is that you found someone's grocery list and felt the need to compile your own list of grievances. It's probably acceptable to mention what was on the original list - in which case MAKE THAT LIST THE POEM'S STARTING POINT.

Everything else that comes before that part is just pointless. Surely you can see that. If the poem can't SHOW the mood you were in - and your new list can't EXPLAIN the hard times you've gone through - without you having to spell it all out to us in the opening 2 lines then why write the poem anyway?

... and if you do decide to revise further you need to trim this part as well -

But oh how empty
Those words stand alone!

How about a list,
I decide,
That goes like this.

I turn it over and then
Into my hand
Up from my heart
Flows through my pen:

If you need me to tell you why these 3 verses need drastic attention perhaps you should consider the poem dead in the water.

H