Cart

Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers,” is short and somewhat shocking, bringing us quickly from a near-hallucinatory descriptive statement to a strange sort of question, before ending on the very direct statement of a “truth.” Six lines, three sentences, and to top it off, a title that I think works for the poem but is only obliquely related to its text. Today, try writing a poem that follows the same beats: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion.

Look! That old horse-cart
lies slanted at garden's end.
And what of the sturdy old
clopper who used to pull it along?
Gone east now, to a tall building
Practising public administration