In the room where I sat and wrote poetry all night, next to me sat a gentleman who made decorations out of copper wire. It was a perfect pairing, because whenever a child gave me a word, such as “apple” or “horse,” they could go to him and get him to make that thing to go with their poem.
On his other side sat a very young artist, selling her wonderful paintings. She was kind enough to give me the word “potato,” which was thrilling because, to misquote G. K. Chesterton, “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of potatoes.” What a fun challenge!
Generally, when I write poetry on my own, it’s neither maudlin nor comedic. For improv poetry, I try to do a lot of rhyming and a lot of fun and love-related poems, because I’m doing my best to make it enjoyable for the receiver, but I also let the poem go where it will. It turns out that on that day, potatoes were a little sad. You just never know what will happen when you put pen to paper–one of the great joys of a writer’s life.
Potato (for Lyric)
Potato is happy, potato is sad,
potato is hungry, potato is mad.
Potato is bored, tired, jealous,
silly, spaced-out, bad.
No, Potato is not bad.
He’s rotten, left too long on the shelf,
lonely, forgotten.
Susan Sylvester, author 