LBI Poet's Studio

Accomplished and emerging poets alike can find inspiration in our Zoom workshop. To attend this virtual event contact Sue Cummings via email scummings817@comcast.net to receive the Zoom link.

This group meets the 1st Thursday of every month from 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm. You may either join the Zoom event at the LBI Library in the meeting room using our laptops, or you can join from home using your own computer/laptop.

Our Prompt for September is to write a poem that uses a word, a phrase, or line from Karina Borowicz's poem, "September Tomatoes."

September Tomatoes

by Karina Borowicz

The whiskey stink of rot has settled

in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises

when I touch the dying tomato plants.

Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms

flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots

and toss them in the compost.

It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready

to let go of summer so easily. To destroy

what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months.

Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.

My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village

as they pulled the flax. Songs so old

and so tied to the season that the very sound

seemed to turn the weather.

As a Bonus Challenge use three or more of the following words chosen at random from John Irving's novel, Last Night in Twisted River.

Coos County, frozen, underwater, carpet, breaking, torrent, logs, riverbank, flowing, swollen, matted, sea, bluish black, basin, lumberjacks, helmsman, oxen, machinery, issue, horses, crawler, cook, bars, maimed, share, fixture, souls, peavey, barb, mom, impulse, drunk, blame, son, waist, downstairs, generally, forehead, enthusiasm, mud, pupil, married, mid-forties, Exeter, parking, sleeping, mood, moron, boiling, ultra-thin, luckily, chickens, hammer, flour, barrel, luddite, sous chef, pool, shepherd, interlude, white-haired, Iowa, beer, bikes, noise, toddler, undergraduate, two-story, police, angel, exquisitely, pear-gray, driveway, book, spirited, Toronto, gym, shrine, island, outweighed, dark-framed glasses, Lake Huron, confiscated, forty-seven, circumstances, dog-walkers, wonky-eyed, 1954, comic, replica, agility

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