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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Susie's Challenge

Hello it is me Ella. It was my turn with the baton. I had to select someone and bestow a challenge. I decided to pick the Laundry Goddess, herself, SusieI love Susie's byline:

I am hearing poetry when awake
Dreaming poetry when asleep
Breathing poetry with each breath
I am living in a poem



Dirty Laundry by ~jnati


What about poetry when doing laundry?  I challenged Susie to write a poem using words involved with doing laundry, for example: wash, rinse, spin and dry.  I told her she could use what she wanted regarding these terms. The true challenge was to use laundry products in her poem. I emailed her a list and told her to use 7 product names.  I checked with her later on, to see how she was doing.  She admitted, it was a little more challenging than she first thought.  

Then she sent me the poem, "If this doesn't work, let me know... I will go back to the laundry room and try again." lol


I knew our Goddess had a great sense of humor!

laundry. by ~macro-art

 

When you read it you will see she did not need to do another load, I mean poem.  It is all I hoped for and more!  She included these products:  Joy, Bold, Gain, Cheer, Ivory, Tide and Fresh Start.

 



To Be Bold Enough

I have placed myself
In four walls of mundane.
Boredom is all consuming
with regimented minutes
ticking away my life.

There is no joy in predictable
Spontaneous has become foreign.
I was once bold and creative,
now to change the routine
of when I wash my hair overwhelms.
I try and spin my life when
speaking to my friends
as being so busy I haven’t time
to meet them for dinner.
To what gain is that façade?
I know they must see through
my false cheer.

My life is an ivory palette
of bored neutrality.
This tide mediocre
has washed away
my enthusiasm
leaving me a dried spinster.

I need a fresh start.
But how does one create
life from dust?
I have spent too long
staring at the blank walls
inside of me.
Perhaps I am simply
an empty canvas waiting
for the right person
to pick up a brush.

©Susie Clevenger 2012


 

Laundry in the Sky by ~s-hime

21 comments:

  1. Beautiful, Susie. You worked in all those laundry terms seamlessly; and you came up with a dynamite ending. I am sure either the right person will pick up the brush or you will paint your own canvas or both!

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  2. OH! MY! GOD! This is SPECTACULAR! Ella, what a hilarious prompt. I can tell you right now, I would have been Ivory Snowed under by it, but Susie has done it with Zest and Cheer!

    Susie, my hat is off to you, and I raise a goblet of laundry detergent to you in deepest respect and admiration!

    The pictures are utterly wonderful and this was a fun read from beginning to end. Very very clever!

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  3. Wow, Susie... this is beautiful! I can relate all too well. Perhaps we're stuck in a rut and should meet up in Houston for a conference or something!

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  4. Great stuff, Susie. You really did work the product names in seamlessly. I went right by one or two and had to back up to find them. Wow! Love it.
    Ella, what an imaginative challenge.
    K

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  5. First off, I must stand, and give loud applause to Ella for coming up with one of the most innovative personal challenges yet! So perfect for Susie.

    And then, I must allow my three cheers for Susie to resound in cyberspace. You rose to the challenge admirably, and I'm sure many readers will nod in complete understanding of every line.

    "This tide mediocre
    has washed away
    my enthusiasm..."

    Excellent work from two very creative women.

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  6. Oh, my goodness! Fabulously laundery-ish and laundery-ishly fabulous!!! Completed metaphorically and every other way!

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  7. Wonderful! As a poet with several "laundry poems" for some inexplicable reason, I absolutely loved this! :)

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  8. Awesome job! I feel like I've lived every line in that poem.

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  9. Whoop, Whoop....You crushed it, and I walk away squeaky clean and smelling like lavender and vanilla to boot. Great job and cool challenge.

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  10. I keep hearing that jingle,"I'm gonna wash that gray, right out of my hair." I think we just need to worry about washing the gray out of lives. I have had moments feeling stark and empty. I wasn't bored, just on someone else's timeline.

    You captured the life of mediocre, but there is always room for a rainbow~

    I loved what you wrote! It was pleasure to work with you~

    I am so glad you didn't laugh at my challenge. YOU were brave and faced it like a Warrior, I mean Goddess ;D

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  11. This is a really creative response to the challenge, which frankly I think the easier route would have been to work the humor angle instead of addressing more serious issues. I was delighted to pick out the product names, used so unobtrusively, and felt the message was really in tune with how easy it is to put ourselves in a box--laundry is an excellent metaphor in this. Great job, Susie. You have more than earned your title. ;_)

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  12. so impressive! wow. "now to change the routine of when i wash my hair overwhelms." indeed.

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  13. Beautiful poem and the laundry words have been worked in non-obtrusively!

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  14. "I have spent too long
    staring at the blank walls
    inside of me."

    Loved those lines. the whole piece was terrific...I feel some common ground with your words...maybe I need to do something unpredictable :)

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  15. Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments. Ella did most of the work and it was marvelous! All I had to do was the laundry.

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  16. You picked the perfect challenge for our Laundry Goddess, Ella. And Suzie, what can I say? It was a delight to read this wonderfully creative response to Ella's challenge - loved it!

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  17. This one made me smile, what a great prompt and a wonderful response.

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  18. A perfect challenge for Susie, Ella.

    And Susie you did very well with weaving the words into a meaningful take. I like the need to start anew, to be bold and paint our words in the canvass ~ Very nice ~

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  19. Love the challenge, love the response!

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  20. This was inspired by laundry?! Stunningly brilliant! Maybe I need to give *'Mount Washmore' a second look.
    * a friend's name for the laundry pile:)

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  21. Susie you did more than just laundry! ;D YOU created a world within~

    Thank you Kerry! At first I thought it was too simple, so glad I went with my first thought!

    Susie you were toasted with laundry detergent, what a day! ;D Cheers to the Laundry Goddess~

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