When you think it just cannot get worse,
Some MFA types out more verse.
Lisa Spaar tells a tale:
Massive poetry fail—
We are under her poetry curse.

In her poem, Duet, Lisa Russ Spaar tells the story of two sisters making music together, based on two pre-existing songs by different artists. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.

Cold, daring / No flies on me
Sorry angel, I must take what I see

Green earrings—I remember the rings of rare design
I remember the look in your eye / I don’t mind

Greek medallion / Sparkles when you smile
Sorry angel, I get hungry like a child

Green earrings—I remember the rings of rare design
I remember the look in your eye / I don’t mind

Green earrings—I remember the rings of rare design
I remember the look in your eye / I don’t mind

LYRICS: Steely Dan, ABC Records 1976

Well I shore had me some fun in this old Nationalist Poetry Month thang.
April is the cruelest month y’all know that anyways I done writ a whole slew of poems last month and HERE THEY IS for y’alls most eruditical poemic deelectation.

1.   Codexes
2.   To a Yogini
3.   To Frank O’Hara
4.   Do What Thou Art
5.   Ports of Call
6.   Minted
7.   She is Not a Poem
8.   Inclusive Ghazal
9.   Tagged
10. Curated Content
11. Wisdom Calls for Prudence
12.  Saga of the Wars of the Races
13.  There is a Red Flag 
14.  Come Over My Place
15.  Boom, Baby, BOOM
16.  Musical Harlots
17.  Sign of the Red Pelican
18.  Strange Charity
19.  Newport Blues
20.  Inclusivity Training
21.  Limericks for Sawako
22.  Arrivals/Departures
23.  Bird Flew Epidemic
24.  Sparring w/Lisa
25.  Garden Revisited
26.  Signage Sonnet
27.  Shout-out to Grünewald
28.  Queen of the South: 1749
29.  V. Chang [OBIT]
30.  Generic Jazz

possums know jazz

dig Coltrane/snap
to that bebop

groove to trumpets
louder than Vietnam, Iraq, Gaza

break like pregnant waters
born of dry ice
vaporized

bonobo possums, antipodeans
grazing on

Antarctic fission/fusion
fluxus fata morgana

needed like we need
Bonobo lottery tickets

(re)membered reconstituted loss

hard investment
in a well-lubricated account:

man-baby fake-ass banker

insolvent in liquidity

as if Bonobos actually played jazz
and Coltrane merely

interpreted (snap)

I followed this poetry template:

An irrelevant quip to start:
Some offhand remark
or a vapid pop-culture reference

then: strange mismatched ideas,
verbose obscurantism,
violently odd similes,
clash of madly-mixed metaphors.

Don’t forget

absurd line breaks/

spacing

a non-sequitur or two…

SUDDEN SEXUAL REFERENCE
(or race-baiting)

if U want your fake poem
to go that way…
then, repeat some line
from start of the “poem”

and finally: that PERT and QUIRKY

not-quite-closure.