We are going to use today's blog poem as the basis for this week's prompt; be sure to state after Chelsea Rathburn in between your title and your poem (or essay or story).
But before we get to that, a little commercial, which also ties to today's blog poem, How It Happened. This poem is a "love" poem, and I will be leading a workshop on "love" poems on February 19. This workshop is online, from 11:00-2:00, Pacific time. It is a pay-what-you-can workshop, with all fees going to the Portland, OR chapter of For Goodness Cakes. FGC is a national non-profit; volunteers make cakes and cupcakes for kids and young adults in foster care, shelters, etc. for their celebrations. All skill levels/publishing histories are welcome! To register for Love Is Strange Poetry Workshop, head here: https://argentasoftware.com/interfaces/fgc/frmEventTicketSalesForm.aspx?EventID=3784
Back to our scheduled prompt.
It is mostly a poetry prompt, but if you are using it for prose, just skip the form parts of the prompt and use the content parts.
Begin your poem with "I blame" and end it with a question that starts with "Can I (or you, we, she, the elephant, etc.) be blamed for."
Your poem should have 4 stanzas, with the first and fourth stanzas having five lines, and the other two stanzas having 2, 3, 4, or 6 lines each.
Your piece should also mention a specific place.
Your poem (or prose piece) does not need to have anything to do with love.
If you would like to add a bit more of a challenge to this prompt, look back at the blog poem from September 26, 2021--Judy Montgomery's Breastbone Ode. She has a lot of "b" words here, and since you already have blame in your first drafts, "b" words will work wonderfully with blame. (Plus, you will have the pleasure of reading another great poem today.) Enjoy!
