I don’t want to write a poem right now

I don’t want to write a poem right now

my brain is half asleep

and eyelids are taking their final bow…

Suddenly, my alarm goes BEEP

My brain is half asleep

though the sun is shining bright.

Suddenly, my alarm goes BEEP

Oh no! There’s still that poem to write.

Though the sun is shining bright

I have no concentration.

Oh no! There’s still that poem to write.

I need some inspiration.

I have no concentration

What should I write about?

I need some inspiration.

Writer’s block makes me want to shout!

What should I write about?

I give up. It’s no use.

Writer’s block makes me want to shout!

I’ll give my teacher a good excuse.

I give up. It’s no use.

Can’t think of what to say.

I’ll give my teacher a good excuse.

Oh well, it’s the only way.

Can’t think of what to say

to explain my situation

Oh well, it’s the only way,

I’ll write an explanation.

To explain my situation,

I’ll do the only thing I can.

I’ll write an explanation,

to make her understand.

I’ll do the only think I can

without making myself look silly,

to make her understand

that I did try, really.

Dear teacher,

I wish I could explain myself better,

but I hope you won’t take away a whole grade letter.

I chose the Pantoum form because the repetition and rhyme worked well with my theme. Even though the Pantoum doesn’t need to rhyme, mine does, because things like that seem to make a lot of poems lighter, and I wanted this to be a light, understandable poem that didn’t boggle people’s minds or frustrate them with abstractedness. Those types of poems are sometimes fun to write too, especially if I’m trying to gain an understanding of something complex, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do here. It would be hard to tell a story in chronological order in this form because of all the repeating lines, so that wasn’t my goal either. I had one main theme, so the lines I used could be flexible and put into different contexts as the poem moved from one stanza to the next. It was surprisingly difficult to find lines that could be taken out of context and put into a different one. By using this form, I hoped to convey the humorous side of the poem and make people smile, not delve into the depths of critical thinking. I also think poems that repeat and rhyme are often more memorable and less boring. The only rule I broke was putting the stanza that begins with “Dear teacher” at the very end of the poem. Strictly speaking, that doesn’t follow the correct form of the Pantoum. I did that just to emphasize that the poem was no longer me talking to myself, but me talking to someone else. It was meant to be sort of like a post script at the end of a letter.