Feelin’ Spicy

by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 22, 2025

Spice Level 10½

                    after Vince Gotera

I like my chili peppers hot, but stop
before I burn my tastebuds off and yell
for bread or milk or lemon’s acid tang.
The mild jalapeno’s but a prop
that grants the diner bragging rights, but hell—
my peppers need more bite—a sharper fang.
In scorpion, I’ve met my match, then some—
the waiter, worried, asks me, “Are you well?”
Glares, disapprovingly, at laughter from the gang.
Florid-faced and tearful, I succumb—
               a whimper, not a bang.

This poem was inspired by Vince Gotera’s curtal sonnet, “Papa’s Chili.” He has been trying to get me to write a curtal sonnet for two years. I have stubbornly resisted. I have been trying to coax him off his shadorma kick for a few months, so when he wrote “Papa’s Chili” how could I not relent and try a curtal sonnet?

Vince, by the way, thought I cheated on the last line of this curtal sonnet form, developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It’s supposed to be a 10½ line sonnet, but my original draft was “with a whimper not a bang” (six and a half feet). Picky, picky, picky. I would rather it flow, rhythmically, and say what I mean to say than to strictly adhere to the form. That said, I finally settled on this version. I don’t think much is lost by adding an em dash and removing “with.” Neither did Vince, who suggested almost the same thing, in a small poetry group we belong to, after I rewrote this. Great minds, or something like that…

Editing and refinement are half the fun. However, it is so easy to get stuck in a sort of holding pattern, because a poem may never be truly “done.” If we fret, revise, add, and subtract, we’ll never deem it worthy of publication. It will rot in a drawer, as so much of my writing has done over the years. And once it’s released in the wild, opinions on whether it flows better with an extra metrical foot or needs an ellipsis rather than an em dash are nearly as numerous as the readers who’ve seen the thing. I say “nearly” because I suspect most readers, unless they are writers or avid poetry scholars, themselves, won’t notice or care so long as the writer’s last choice doesn’t trip them up like an unexpected speed-bump on a rural road.

I mentioned the other day that I’m rarely inspired by “prompts.” Lately, I’ve been approaching them the way a recalcitrant student might approach a tedious assignment, with a mix of michief, rebellion, and smart-assery. Just “git ‘er done,” right? But I’ll admit I enjoy tossing a gauntlet back and forth, for fun, with my fellow poets. Not a prompt, a challenge – be it a topic, a response, a form, or some other constraint. I enjoy writing collaboratively, as well.

Poets responding to other poems is an old tradition – using the original poem as a prompt, a springboard, an invitation to a conversation. I have been doing this with my friend, Necia Campbell, for a couple of years, now. I once sent Vince critique on one of his sonnets – and wrote it in sonnet form. If the usual type of “prompt” isn’t working for you, be it in poetry, short fiction, or other forms of writing, consider that the whole world is nothing but prompts. Talk to it. Talk about it. Argue with it. But whatever you do, pay attention to it.

Rabbit Holes and the Incessant “Why?”

by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 21, 2025

Every parent knows the endless “why?” of a curious child. And everyone who’s ever used a search engine has been sucked down the rabbit hole, themselves, beginning with a simple “why?” Ever spend hours following intriguing links and breadcrumbs, only to realize you never did get the answer to your original question–or, if you did, you got so many different answers that they were all meaningless, and you were left just as clueless as when you started?

The Writer’s Digest November PAD prompt, today, was to write a “why blank” poem. As with yesterday’s prompt, I have one serious and one smart-ass poetic response. That was the intention, but now I’m not sure which is which. Perhaps both are really quite serious, after all.

Why?

Why ask “why?” when every question’s met
with punditry from tyros and tyrants? 
Vast libraries lie within your grasp,
and graze your curious fingertips
to yank you down, down, down
a winding maze, the dusty stacks 
where knowledge lives until you realize
(hours later) that you have always had the answers
to all the questions—save one. You still
don’t know the answer to the question: “Why?”

Why Blank?

"Why blank?" the teacher asked, 
confused. The boy replied, "You said 
we ought to write an essay, 
what we thought
of summers off, or flying kites, 
or looking deep 
into the eyes that stare at us
from our reflection in the mirror."
The teacher nodded. "And?"
She held the pristine sheet
of paper to the light.
The child sighed. "I've never known
a summer off, the grass grows faster
than I do, and there are weeds to pull.
Nor have I ever flown a kite--
though some have told me
that I ought to do, I don't know how.
And there is no one looking back
but me, outside the window pane
or from the mirrored glass
above the sink. His silence
tells a lonely tale, and even I--
who longs to have a friend--
grow bored. You see? My mind
is dull, just like
the other teacher said--
uninteresting. And that," 
the sad-faced child said, 
"is why it's blank."

Sometimes you start out writing one thing and it veers off into unexpected territory. Don’t judge – just go with it and see which rabbit hole it leads to.

Reading Too Quickly for My Own Good

by Holly Jahangiri | Nov 20, 2025

Robert Brewer’s prompt for November 19 was to “write a six word poem.” I should’ve read farther, but the idea of a six-word poem immediately triggered thoughts of the infamous “six word story” (often misattributed to Hemingway). Aside from that one example, I have yet to see six words that, by themselves, constitute a story. They are barely a sentence or two. Six words might capture a moment or a mood, but they are not a story.

Could six words constitute a poem? Maybe. I usually avoid very short forms. Few poets – and I include myself in this – write them well. We all learned to write haiku in elementary school, but most of us learned it badly. Too often, I think they read like fortune cookies or insipid platitudes or the ubiquitous “inspirational quotations” that are floating around on the internet. But Brewer’s prompt brought out my inner smart-ass. He even offered “extra credit” and if you know me, I’ll fall for the “extra credit” assignment every time. He provided a list of six words and urged us to include at least three. That left only three words to play with, as I originally read the prompt. And so I wrote an “immediate reaction poem.”

Write a Six Word Poem?

See my gnarled squint?
Gibberish. No.

After reading Brewer’s example, I realized my error. His “six-word poem” prompt was more like the decades’ worth of prompts from the Creative Copy Challenge. I vowed to try again, and the following is the result.

A Mind Gone to Seed

She squints off in the distance
contemplates the violence
of the tranquil river’s rapids
roiling far below. How bit by bit,
a millimeter here or there
it yields. This hard, river-slicked
rock relents, gives way
to bubbles’ joyful dancing.
He's a cup of summer sunshine
held in gnarled hands. Gibberish
slips now from his lips like
dandelions gone to seed. She knows
that it would only take a moment,
just the slightest breeze. She blows.

Yikes. I hope he’s in a better place.