{"id":303,"date":"2009-11-20T17:02:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T22:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=303"},"modified":"2009-11-25T11:02:27","modified_gmt":"2009-11-25T16:02:27","slug":"weekly-prompt-we-mustnt-____-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/20\/weekly-prompt-we-mustnt-____-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Prompt: “We Mustn’t ____ Anymore”"},"content":{"rendered":"

First things first:\u00a0a shout out to\u00a0Oliver de la Paz<\/a>, who unwittingly provided the impetus for this week’s prompt.\u00a0 Mr. de la Paz, we love what you write!<\/p>\n

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter recently in order to keep up with the LR community and\u00a0last week, I\u00a0happened to read one of\u00a0Mr. de la Paz’s\u00a0Tweets that said:<\/p>\n

Oliver_delaPaz<\/a> mustn’t put two spaces after periods anymore. Oops. Old habits die hard.
\n11:37 PM Nov 13th<\/span> from web<\/span> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The content of the Tweet\u00a0registered briefly\u00a0with me\u00a0(I spent a lot of time this summer\u00a0having to retrain myself to use one space after periods because my job involved cover copy work), but as the week wore on, I found that the rhythm of that first sentence had, in a strange way, worked itself into my head.\u00a0 “We mustn’t ____ anymore,” I thought as I washed the dinner dishes.\u00a0 “We mustn’t_____anymore,” chugged the\u00a0buses rolling\u00a0past my apartment on their morning routes.\u00a0 “We mustn’t ______anymore,”\u00a0wheezed the teakettle as I brewed\u00a0my afternoon cup.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Being haunted by a Tweet (okay, a variation on a p<\/em>hrase <\/em>from a Tweet)\u00a0is no easy thing.\u00a0 It twists itself into your every thought and action, pokes at you until\u00a0your very footsteps are beating out “We mustn’t_____anymore,” and you feel\u00a0you must<\/em> do something with\u00a0it.\u00a0 Hence, this week’s prompt.\u00a0 To Mr. de la Paz: apologies for hijacking your internet musings.\u00a0 No irreverence was intended.\u00a0Twitter made me do it!<\/span><\/p>\n

* * *<\/span><\/p>\n

This\u00a0exercise takes its form from both the phrase “We mustn’t ______ anymore” and from Kenneth Koch’s <\/a>classic poetry exercise for children, in which every line begins with the words “I Wish.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Prompt:
\n<\/span>Write a list poem composed of sentences that begin with “We mustn’t . . . ” and that end with ” . . . anymore.”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

From my own attempt:<\/span><\/p>\n

We Mustn\u2019t Take Arms Anymore
\n<\/strong>after a Tweet by Oliver de la Paz<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

we mustn\u2019t take arms anymore
\nwe mustn\u2019t eat fish anymore
\nwe mustn\u2019t go rolling green plastic
\nlettuce heads down grocery aisles
\nanymore we mustn\u2019t\u00a0darn socks
\nanymore we mustn\u2019t kiss dogs anymore
\nwe mustn\u2019t hold wet soda bottles
\nagainst our cheeks to feel them sweat
\nanymore we mustn\u2019t blow fuses
\nanymore we mustn\u2019t watch stars
\nanymore we mustn\u2019t draw sticky
\nslick ponchos above our heads anymore
\nwe mustn\u2019t sigh anymore we mustn\u2019t
\nblink anymore we mustn\u2019t shout names \u2013
\nthe city won\u2019t sleep anymore<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

If you attempt this exercise, please consider\u00a0commenting with\u00a0an excerpt (or the entirety!) of your results.\u00a0 We would love to see what different directions\u00a0you’ve taken.\u00a0\u00a0Many thanks to Oliver de la Paz for inspiring us with his wordplay (and for allowing us to write about it in this post).\u00a0If you’re not already following him, please go give him some love on Twitter<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps you, too, will find yourself spending a whole week haunted by one of his Tweets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First things first:\u00a0a shout out to\u00a0Oliver de la Paz, who unwittingly provided the impetus for this week’s prompt.\u00a0 Mr. de la Paz, we love what you write! I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter recently in order to keep up with the LR community and\u00a0last week, I\u00a0happened to read one of\u00a0Mr. de la […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[70,68,69,59,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}