Grandma's Purse
A majestic purse once hung on a proud arm
for thirty years. Filled with hair combs, lemon drops
and a pocketbook full of nickels for smiling children
who said please. It is now just an ornament.
Its pea-green exterior, worn from being gripped and hugged;
and gold clasp too difficult for knotted hands to open.
Now the purse is empty, it has not seen outside
the nursing home in many years.
Grandma's Purse was the first poem I wrote for my ENGL 382 class. The assignment for this piece was to make a poem (with line breaks) out of a piece of prose writing. It was a bit of a challenge, seeing that it was the first assignment. What I tried to do was take out anything that I thought took away from the poem. I cut out superfluous (unnecessary) words and re-arranged some lines to create this piece.
This poem was one of the more controversial ones I've written. A lot of the people who read this poem thought that I killed off Grandma at the end. I'd like to go on the record and say that was NOT my intention.
I know that in this country, senior citizens get ignored once their pocketbooks go dry and I think that's wrong. That's what I was trying to say. Not that Grandma was dead, but that Grandma was now poor and no one loves you when your poor.
But I can't be held accountable for what the readers think. That's why I love writing poetry!
A majestic purse once hung on a proud arm
for thirty years. Filled with hair combs, lemon drops
and a pocketbook full of nickels for smiling children
who said please. It is now just an ornament.
Its pea-green exterior, worn from being gripped and hugged;
and gold clasp too difficult for knotted hands to open.
Now the purse is empty, it has not seen outside
the nursing home in many years.
Grandma's Purse was the first poem I wrote for my ENGL 382 class. The assignment for this piece was to make a poem (with line breaks) out of a piece of prose writing. It was a bit of a challenge, seeing that it was the first assignment. What I tried to do was take out anything that I thought took away from the poem. I cut out superfluous (unnecessary) words and re-arranged some lines to create this piece.
This poem was one of the more controversial ones I've written. A lot of the people who read this poem thought that I killed off Grandma at the end. I'd like to go on the record and say that was NOT my intention.
I know that in this country, senior citizens get ignored once their pocketbooks go dry and I think that's wrong. That's what I was trying to say. Not that Grandma was dead, but that Grandma was now poor and no one loves you when your poor.
But I can't be held accountable for what the readers think. That's why I love writing poetry!
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