Series: Happy Ideas-Prompt 1
Duchamp in the kitchen.
This series is based on the poem Happy Ideas, by Mary Szybist,
which you can read in full at
A Quote to Inspire You
I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel
to a kitchen stool and watch it turn.
—DUCHAMP
Happy Ideas Prompt 1: Duchamp in the Kitchen
• Stand in your kitchen and take stock of what’s there:
a table, chairs, a coffee maker, pots and pans, blue goblets, someone’s purple swim suit?
• Make a list of the items in the kitchen that make you happiest. (Go ahead, we’ll drink our tea slowly while you make the list 😊 ).
• Now, take a cue from Duchamp and put two things together that don’t really belong together—but it could be fun to see the pairing. (We put boots on the legs of our kitchen chairs one day, and you should have seen the surprised smiles!)
• Put your unusual kitchen combo into a poem. Or, put several unusual pairings into your poem. If you like, put each pairing into a separate couplet in a ghazal.
Photo by Jonathan Daniels, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.