By Thomas Page
I am student teaching a senior level class in Washington, DC. They have to write some poems on these prompts. I decided to try all 30 of them. However, I will not say what the prompt was but what it number was.
Prompt #19
The clatter of a thousand voices talking
At the same time
Fills the room lit by the winter light
Through a scrim’d window besides me.
A thousand side conversations that have nothing to do with the objective on the board
Or with the theme of the unit at hand.
Conversations about the weekend
Or the person sitting next to the speaker
Or the latest song on the radio
Or the coming of lunchtime
Or the unadulterated hatred of the assignment.
A thousand handrung bells at different tempos
Led by different conductors
Looking at their phones
Across the room.
The concert continues for a shade below an hour
Until the next showing begins in someone else’s room
To repeat their song elsewhere.
