I took a poetry course in college as one of my requirements in my writing major. In one class session, the TA had each of us write a question on one piece of paper and an answer on another piece of paper. Then, we were to pass our questions to the person on our left and our answers to the person on our right. Whatever question and answer combination we ended up with became our little impromptu “poem” of the day, and we each read our poems aloud for the rest of the class to hear.

If you ever get a chance to do something like that, take it. The results are often quite surprising. I actually kept a record of some of the poems from that class, and I decided to share some of them with you today:

What is too much love?
It is my child by my father.

What is the animal that lurks outside?
It is the hollow cloud of a colorless sky.

What is a tear?
It is the swelling colors of dawn.

What is dreaming of a lost lover?
It was Oliver, waking from his nap.

What is the sky?
It is the yellow-green hue of spring.

What is the purpose of society?
It is a screaming rain pounding its fists against the door.

What is antidisestablishmentarianism?
It is the Big Kahuna wave that has come to take you down.

What is a dog’s bark?
It is a yellow bird in a black cage.

What is the direction of scattered thought?
Then yesterday is forgotten.

What is a man without language?
It is a man holding a balloon.

What is resonance?
It is a marble ladder extending beyond the clouds.

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