Exercise
Don Kingfisher Campbell is founder of POETRYpeople youth writing
workshops, publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, leader of
the Emerging Urban Poets writing and Wednesday Afternoon Critique workshops,
and host of Monday Night Poetry in Pasadena. His first book of poetry, "Enter," was published by iUniverse Press.
By Don Kingfisher Campbell
The sure sign was this:
I said we only have ten minutes
so I put my elbows on the table
felt the slight tilt of the surface
brought on by the weight
of other poets hunkering down
to write their own poems
based on a first line of a page
chosen spontaneously from a book
selected without looking at the title
and time scribbled quietly on
with the whirr of a ceiling fan
the circulated air felt good
flowing over my arm hairs
my stomach sat comfortably full
I had no desire to go to another room
the poem I wrote continued
as a car parked outside
then the sound of indiscriminate voices until
I only had a humming refrigerator to talk about
Published May 2006
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