This week's prompt for Next Line, Please called for variants and elaborations on “I’m going to break that marriage up” (spoken by Teresa Wright in The Best Years of Our Lives) or Norah Ephron’s “I’ll have what she’s having” (from When Harry Met Sally) or Woody Allen’s “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis, I don’t know how the can opener works” (from Hannah and Her Sisters).
There were a great deal of impressive poems which utilized one or all of the quotes, as well as an impressive amount of editorial work that is going on behind the scenes! I think it's really cool when writers can give and receive notes on each other's work.
My favorite poem incorporated multiple references to the quotes, and sounded playful and clever:
“All That’s Left Behind Lies Ahead” by Paul Michelson:
“The best days are the first to flee.”
—VirgilRoasting marshmallows with Prometheus
as Athena cries out, Horae for Anesidora.
Can I use her crown to open a can?I’ll have what she’s having. A seizure. A salad.
A seizure salad. Sangria. Salud.
Some ’ludes. A little solitude.Caesarian. A shortcut, a longshot, a backrub.
Colombian necktie. Lookin’ sharp.
Lookin’ good.Failed painter with a toothbrush mustache.
Twinkle in the eye of a tyrant.
Adenoid Hynkel, aspiring to be divine.I figured out how to use that can opener
but I can’t get the worms back in.
Visit the American Scholar's page to read more poems, including an Abecedarius in 26 Words!
--Virginia Valenzuela
