Cool as a Cucumber

by Catherine Giordano

My news print poetry project requires that I write a poem a day, a “found poem” taken from something in the Orlando Sentinel. Sometimes I find a beautiful poem, and sometimes I go through the newspaper four times and can’t find anything.

Wednesday December 19 was one of those days—nothing!  In desperation I checked the “Ticked-off” column—a daily collection of reader complaints about things great and small. Usually the latter.

I saw a complaint about cucumbers. I turned it into a poem. I thought it reeked of desperation, but it reminded me a little of a very successful poem by William Carlos Williams entitled “I Should Have Told You.”  It’s a short simple poem about how Williams ate two plums from the refrigerator without telling his wife.

Plums. Cucumbers. What’s the diff?  I decided to post the cucumber poem. I entitled it “Ticked Off.”  

It was a Christmas miracle!  It got more than twice the number of hits as the typical poem.  More importantly, it got more than twice the number of ‘1+’s” from Google Circles. (On “Google Circles” a “1+” is like “liking” on face book.) It got more “+1” endorsements than any other poem for the whole year.

I was almost ashamed to post it, and it turned out to be a fan favorite!

Here is the William Carlos Williams poem.  You can read my poem on my blog.  Click here.

I found this picture at http://www.hangthebankers.com

This Is Just To Say                     

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

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