Writing Prompt: Eat Artful
exceedingly rich...
Writing Prompt: Eat Artful
Think about how you shop for fruits and vegetables (if you aren’t the shopper, write about the person who is). What are your current standards for choosing any given item (size, color, shape)? How might you like to explore shifting your standards, to increase the nutritional value of your foods and eat artful?
In “Pied Beauty,” Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote quite vividly about all that is “spare” and “strange.” His economy of sound is exceedingly rich—so much so that you can almost feel it in your mouth, even when not reading aloud.
Try writing your poem in a Hopkins-esque style. Write about how you currently shop for your produce or how you wish to shop for it in the future. Alternately, write a poem from the point of view of the nutritious smaller, more colorful, more unusually textured fruit or vegetable. Or write about the topic of food perfection and imperfection in general, and its effect on the world.
To Mr. Hopkins, on Foods
Left Off the Shelves
Due to Their “Imperfectness”
Gerard, I know you
were thinking speckled
freckled dappled stippled
rippled ruffled rolled
over and over with
the beauty of the
unused, unusual, unnoticed
unloved—was heaven
in a nutshell, sure as
light let fall over diamond
waters at day’s end.
Little could you know
how the truly unruly are rich
with the glories of generous
nutritional gifts, artfulness
all plated. Gold, pure and simple
for those who buy the forgettable
vegetable, and unround
unsung undazzling fruit.
—L.L. Barkat
“To Mr. Hopkins...” poem was first published at Poetic Earth Month. Used by permission of . Featured photo by Vince Lee, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.