Tweetspeak Prompt: Rhode Island
Share your "rhode island" poem with an encouraging community!
Over at Tweetspeak, there’s a new poetry prompt that invites you to history-laden Rhode Island. Come pen a poem and share it with the community. We can’t wait to read!
Note: sometimes, with your permission, we feature your poems in Every Day Poems if they’re a fit.
Photo by Michael Denning, Creative Commons, via Flickr.
Rhode Island’s History
books are full of claims of being
the first and last or maybe oldest.
As you’ll surely hear as you tour
the smallest state in the union,
King George the 3rd got his surprise
when armed merchants burned
the HMS Gaspee, that act later
to spark the American Revolution.
No swearing allegiance to that
British crown anymore!
Or walk well-regarded Pelham Street
in Newport, “capital of old money”
and still, to this day, the first street
anywhere in the country to use gas-
illuminated lights to show off
those gilded mansions by the sea.
It was G-d’s “merciful providence,”
as Puritan Roger Williams would
have said, that those lawn-tennis folk
never had to give up their silver spoons
or tea caddies, or make their rooms
available to guests when they could
send them up Historic Hill to camp
out at nearby Atlantic House Hotel.
Then there’s Watch Hill, for the select
summering and even richer types, not
to be caught dead on the oldest, always
continuously operating, disaster-surviving
carousel on which flying steeds hang
from chains. Some, undoubtedly, are
inclined more toward the colonial charm
of The White Horse Tavern, dating
to 1673 but updated and still serving clams
and lobsters from Narragansett Bay.
Having spent a Sunday morning praying
at St. Mary’s, the oldest Catholic parish,
or an afternoon in some deep woods
in Cumberland, looking for a marker
on the spot of Nine Men’s Misery, site
of the slaying of soldiers by Wampanoag
in 1676, you’ll want to take hope – a word
enshrined in the state seal – and try
a tall glass of coffee milk, the official drink,
a bit of milk flavored with coffee syrup,
and a serving of johnnycake with a side
of hash, if you missed breakfast.
But do what all Rhode Islanders do:
call ahead so you won’t be disappointed.