Wednesday, when the daily Writer's Almanac arrived, it bore this tidbit of information:
Today
is the birthday of George Washington, born in
Westmoreland County, Virginia (1732). His favorite foods were mashed sweet
potatoes with coconut, string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, salt
cod, and pineapples. He lost all of his teeth except for one by — according to
second president John Adams — cracking Brazilian nuts between his jaws. He got
dentures made out of a hippopotamus tusk, designed especially to fit over his
one remaining real tooth. But the hippo dentures were constantly rubbing
against that real tooth so that he was constantly in pain. He used opium to
alleviate the pain.
That was the impetus for my writing a poem entitled "How to be George Washington" since my Creative Writing class's assignment for the week was to write a Gary Snyder list poem of "how to..." starting each line with a verb. So I did it. It turned out so cynical and full of rant against white supremacists in power that I dare not even post it here. It was fun to write, however.
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