Welcome to this week’s writing prompt written by Fiction Reader Gideon Simons and sample responses written by Managing Editor Devin Koch.
Writing Prompt: Write a poem or story wherein the narration is in a different genre than the content. Examples: A sappy love story told by a horror writer, an experimental postmodern work written as captions of a child’s picture book. This will allow you to play with different genres of writing all while consciously changing the rhetorical situation and writing it in a new, specific lens. If you feel like your writing is one dimensional in the sense that you keep writing in the same form or tone, give this prompt a go!
The following poems encompass the topic of reality television. The first was written through the lens of Dr. Seuss whose work has a whimsical, childlike quality tied toward language, and the second poem is in the genre of crime investigation/journalism, which has a more serious, urgent tone. Read them and find out more!
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(Dr. Seuss Meets Jersey Shore)
“The Guidz Guidz”
One fist, two fist,
three kicks, four.
The orange Guidz
cast mates are craving
just a few more.
Please, Guidzo 3
don’t you leave
me says Guidzette 1
No, No, No, come
join me and Guizette
number 3. says Guidzette
number 2. Guidzos are
Guidzos. She continues
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Tonight the Guidz dance
their bom boms off
avoiding the bomb
bombs of lonely
grenades. This is what
they are afraid. Coming
back to their Guidz Guidz
home, they bone
and bone it is all
the Guidz have ever
known. They pump their
Guidz fist, bitch
and moan. This is the life
of the Guidz and Guidz.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
(Crime Investigation meets The Bachelor)
“Shut Up, The Bachelor is Playing”
Hush, let me listen to what they say.
Tonight they’ll spill secrets and a tear.
There is truth to what they convey.
Jenna will say that she’s slightly okay,
that not getting a rose is her biggest fear.
Hush, let me listen to what they say.
The women will pick at each other like prey.
From this armchair, I will scream & cheer.
There is truth to what they convey.
The bachelor will tell each girl she’s his bae
after producers feed him pints of beer.
Hush, let me listen to what they say.
These lives I will tune-in every Monday
of relationships traveling to feasting ears.
There is truth to what they convey.
Don’t let the commercials take them away.
Don’t let this arm-distance reality disappear.
Hush, let me listen to what they say.
There is truth to what they convey
Devin Koch is a second year poetry candidate at Virginia Tech and the managing editor of the minnesota review.
Gideon Simons is a first year fiction candidate at Virginia Tech. He reads fiction for the minnesota review.
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