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Growing Up Under The Shade Tree

6/25/2015

If you've heard Omoizele Okoawo's poem about The Giving Tree, then you know about The Ass-Kicking Tree. If you've read Charles Schultz's Peanuts strips, you know about The Kite Eating Tree. A shade tree is not just a big leafy place that shelters you from the sun in the summer time, it's also a sassy tree that's about to lay some unkind truths on you. Sit under it at your own risk.

This week, talk about what it would be like to have grown up under this cold, sassy tree.

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For Starters, Syphillis

6/17/2015

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It seems like it's been decades since Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson abused the airwaves with Uptown Funk, a catchy song that doesn't seem like it's ever going to go away. Over and over again, Bruno promises that Uptown Funk is going to give it to us. But it's going to give us...what, exactly?

The title for the poem that this prompt generates should be "An Incomplete List Of Things That Uptown Funk Has Promised To Give" (you)(us)(me) "That" (you)(we)(I) "Decline To Receive"

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I Would Not Buy That For A Dollar

6/11/2015

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So many things appear to be available "at the cost of your soul" or your dignity, or whathave you. Fine. What outrageous price would you be willing to pay in order to get your three minutes of time at your local open mic every week?

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What Teachers Remake

6/3/2015

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This week, a trailer hit the internet for the remake of Point Break, a sure sign that it's time to take Hollywood producers to the shed and shoot them in the back of the head. Maybe if enough of them are killed, the survivors will get nervous enough to do risky things like, I don't know, make new movies.

Why not steal their ideas and start remaking poems? No, not your own poems. Don't find bad poems and try to improve them, find a poem that absolutely doesn't need to be rewritten. Maybe it's just too terrible. Maybe it's perfect the way it is. Or maybe nobody needs to hear this thing one more fucken time.

Marshall Gillson has called dibs on Taylor Mali's "What Teachers Make".

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Growing Up Under The Shade Tree

For Starters, Syphillis

I Would Not Buy That For A Dollar

What Teachers Remake

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