The short answer is: nothing.
The longer answer is, courtesy of Mr. Michael Kim, only one word longer. It is: Mental constipation. Living every day with the trials and tribulations of being a high school senior, the Union has been faced with a severe lack of ideas and inspiration. But we endure. We continue to meet up, unwind and discuss ideas, and search for inspiration in the world around us.
As desperate as this may seem, there couldn’t be anything better for a poet to do. By finding inspiration in our ordinary surroundings, we can take usual, innocuous themes and events and turn them into epic poems. We can simultaneously renew our abilities as poets and people, constantly refreshing our view on the earth. There is nothing better than challenging your mind, NYC poet Taylor Mali said it is one of the only ways to prove “that you still have one”. But I’m starting to rely on extensive clauses and commas, so hopefully that speculation wasn’t too pretentious. A poetic example of what I just attempted to explain…
Burned (3-1-2010)
To blame the coffee or the soup, that is the lingering question
the piping-hot black elixer that cures me from last nights recklessness
or the soul-warming vegetable soup that mother prepared
steaming and scalding when the spoon comes to my lips
both equally potent and capable of inducing three to eight days of pain
three to eight days of taste receptor hell
and a startling inability to enjoy Sour Patch Kids
