The Line Break

“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”

William Carlos Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”

Writing inspiration is all around us–the weather, our mood, something someone said to us on a train or at school, a line from a television show. Writers often find themselves responding to headlines in real-time, because, if you haven’t noticed, people are so, so interesting. Life is brimming with wildness, with beauty, with ODDITY. I remember when I was younger, and the “Human Interest” section of the newspaper was my favorite section, but the older you become you see that the whole newspaper is the human interest section. There’s nothing more delightful than something being interesting, after all, which is a central element of Cleopatra’s beauty and attraction in Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra, her “infinite variety” remarked upon with wonder.

So here, then, are some interesting headlines I’ve pulled for you to use as inspiration for your own poem or story or essay:

• Honeybee Populations are Hitting Record Numbers. Weren’t they dying off before?
• Timothée Chalamet crashes his own look-alike contest after police shut down crowded event
• It’s almost Halloween. That means it’s time for a bat beauty contest
• German police say pizza order No. 40 came with a side of cocaine
• A New Zealand airport wants you to hug goodbye faster
• Woman pleads guilty to trying to smuggle 29 turtles across a Vermont lake into Canada by kayak

Hopefully you will have time to vote and time to rest and even time to write this week!