Thanksgiving is a holiday for spending time with family and friends, ignoring the problematic parts of American history, avoiding politics and overeating. Ultimately, the overeating tends to linger longer in my case...as my pants can readily affirm.
Now is your chance to write an ode to stuffing (or over-stuffing), a sonnet to green bean casserole or that villanelle to repeating heartburn.
Or if you wish to write a truly depressing poem, research nutmeg and never eat pumpkin pie with a clean conscience again. The politics of the dinner table can be as brutal as those discussed around it, but I prefer not to sob over my dessert on a day off, so my prompt is the cheerful and/or creepy instruction to address a poem to a Thanksgiving dish—traditional, take-out, main course, side or just dessert—anything you ate yesterday. And no judgment from the rest of us. Perhaps you can even zombify it. Maybe it will eat you back—from the inside out.
Check out Bruce Guersey’s “Yam” on the Poetry Foundation website .
