Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.
Happy grumpy writing!
god, I hate peaches that syrup, that rot-soft skin age eight, one bad can my body declared full war and has never stood down since peaches are ruined— the fruit, the color, the word even “Georgia” is suspect now, all of it— one bad can, and I am done
Prompt Backstory
Via NaPoWriMo
The Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous two-line poem:
Odi et amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Here’s an English translation.
I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you ask?
I don’t know, but I feel it happening and am tortured.
I thought about this poem the other day when I read a social media post collecting sentences from Charles Darwin’s letters, including:
“Oh my God how do I hate species & varieties.”
“I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world.”
“I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.”
“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.”
“I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.”
I must confess, the idea of being so grumpy that you have come to hate clover and bees is highly amusing to me.
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