Oh, 2020, you have been a colossal dumpsterfire. We aren’t just going to ghost you. No. We are going to burn your favorite jacket, mock your “O” face on TikTok, and chat up your younger sibling. We are going to do unto you what you deserve. I’ll bring the kerosene and you the shovel. If you’ve forgotten some of the truly bizarre and terrible events of the year, here’s a reminder of some of the weirder ones.
For the first prompt, write a breakup letter or a blackmail note to 2020, whichever is needed. Get it all out now. No holding back, no pulled punches, no “let’s be friends.” We aren’t getting back together with this year. Variation on the prompt: take a set of items that represent the year to you—the calendar, a ticket refund receipt, a picture of your empty couch, an expired restaurant coupon, a printout of a furlough notification, or other loss and cut, crumple and shred the items. Reassemble into a Frankenstein’s monster of a document and see if you can create a found poem from the text or ekphrastic from possible images.
For a bonus prompt, write a curse for the biggest bastard(s) of the year. Be petty—let every step taken be barefoot on a Lego—to truly vicious. Make it so.
You may need to write a series of poems about the last four years…