Young Writers Society

a pre-napo poem to show off what i'm planning to do this year.

I appreciate the level of variety you're able to get from this single subject Lizz! And putting the poetry in recipes makes the little imagery twists sneak up on the reader because they're more unexpected in this format.

My favorites have to be the peperocini one, strawberry jam, and distrust.

The way the distrust one built and built until the speaker was stewing created a good emotional progression. And there's something very ominous about the "What's the answer? Be careful with your jars of strawberry jam" that I enjoy.

Also this last one was quite creepy with the cremation/inferno/death vibes but I think that's what you were going for - again unexpected imagery there, because I'm expecting to just read about a nice potluck casserole and then get hit with the funeral imagery. I look forward as always to see how your poetry surprises me next.

@alliyah

Took me a couple of days to remember to reply to this. I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to surprise you and the rest of the audience, as my poetry traits often fall to being predictable. The last one is far creepier than the rest when it starts involving more death than the others cared to mention.

It's not gruesome but it's still terrible.

it seems that my formatting yesterday was disturbed. hopefully this one will work better and i added a stanza to give the recipe more substance.

Okay, well the tiredness one is certainly a mood. Step 4 is nicely put, "If your brain can find a shut down point in the moments of isolation, then take it quickly and separate yourself from this recipe" -- I like that you're maintaining little bits of the recipe language like "separate (egg-whites)" or "shut down (food processor) etc. but then it's saying something completely removed. It reminds me of when I'm so tired that I'm absent-mindedly trying to do some task, but then suddenly I'm doing something different because I'm not paying close enough attention. The poem feels meandering like that - where the reader is getting in spurts of trying to put the recipe together but they're really too tired to get it done.

Happy to see more of your poetry! And I've never thought of Grape Soda as a proper ingredient, but you make a good case for it - and have certainly made the right font choices for entitling these last three too.

Here's a poem challenge for you, "St. George the Chef and the Dragon Slayer roasts some Barbecue Dragon"?