I thought I’d share one more Creative Writing Club poetry project before National Poetry Month is gone (though we love writing poetry in May, too — sometimes it’s the best kind of writing project when you are mostly dreaming of being outside the classroom in the sun!), so here is a piece I wrote this week as we were writing some putrid poetry inspired by the amazing Laura Purdie Salas, who shared her book, The Putrid Poetic Ponderings of Louis J. Pasternak, AKA Dr. Skullstench, on her blog, day by day through the month. Here’s Day One, where we started. My students loved the gross imagery of popping blisters and set to work using imagery of the five senses to write their own putrid poetry.

I was further inspired by this cool poem Laura Purdie Salas wrote on another blog post about a grasshopper watching reality television. We loved thinking about the kinds of reality television other animals would watch, but what caught my eye was this poetic form I had never tried before — the etheree. I’m still not even sure how you say that word, but I knew immediately I would try to write a putrid poem that had ten lines, each with one more syllable than the last. When I pulled out my notebook page and trusty pencil, the one-syllable word that came to the top of my brain was SQUISH. A delightfully disgusting word, all on its own, but the image that immediately followed formed this poem!

putrid etheree

Squish!

His butt

Hits the floor.

Across the room,

I wrinkle my nose,

Look around for someone —

Anyone else who can help,

But I am alone with the stench,

The juicy aroma wafting out

Of my baby brother’s soggy diaper.

Thanks, Laura Purdie Salas for providing my students and me with a terrific source of inspiration and a brand new poetry form to try out!