[Newspoetry] Ape Prompt

[William Gillespie]

Here's a writing exercise Dirk Stratton gave to his students,. He has
given me permission to send it to newspoetry. The trick will be working
the news in...


Ape Prompt

Teaching the Ape to Write Poems
   —James Tate, 1991

They didn’t have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
“You look like a god sitting there.
Why don’t you try writing something?”


Assignment:

Assume, as the poem does, that the ape actually could write in response
to Dr. Bluespire’s “prompt” and reproduce the first poem the ape writes.
Your poem should be at least 14 lines long and must  be in English (no
Oooook ooook screeeeee waughscreeeeee! gibberish—though a couple of
ape-like neologisms are allowed, if you so desire).


Example:

The things I do
for bananas . . .
I can’t complain,
better here than
the savanah,
no leopards, no
snakes, no shortage
of food or drink . . .
so what if they
give me a page
to fill? Okay,
how much more? Think,
think. So hard to
do. Next time it
would help a bit
if they also
gave me language.