For the second prompt I have put below a photograph of a map dress which I bought a while ago at an exhibition and was created by J Carus. Post your poems below. In May selected poems from these prompts will be published on The Poetry Shed… happy writing…
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Abegail Morley 
I love this dress and the prompt, Abegail.
Great! Good luck writing something and don’t forget to post it in the comments when you’re ready.
Conversations about Geography with Zenzi
1.
And that, Zenzi, is Maskat.
That, Abyssinia. Belgian Congo. French Equatorial Africa.
Places that exist only on a map.
Singapore 1928 Nairobi 1937. And that closer home, Bombay.
Where do I find this world for you?
To make you feel this, I need to tell you a story, about history.
Even as this is a map
It is a very old one.
When the world looked different.
Let’s say there was no grandmother then, or grandfather.
There was just the earth.
(No, this isn’t working).
Let’s begin from what is.
This is a nice dress, Zenzi.
It reminds us of what the world used to be
Before we were around.
Did people eat on time then?
Were children naughty?
Did they go to school?
Were we home then?
The oceans still swirled, those days.
I won’t tell you about the wars.
But a lot of things changed
And even Bombay is called Mumbai now.
But what is a map really but a way to tell a story
How we travelled, then to now.
Yes, I like the dress, but not what’s in it.
For me, it reminds me of something else,
That I cannot explain, that you are too young to know.
Let’s just say, this is an old map and a new dress.
And Khartoum is still in Sudan.
And the Arabian Sea brings news from far away, like a monsoon breeze.
2.
Yes, papa, one day using this map,
We will go to the moon.
Then we will go to North America and Australia
And meet my cousin there.
It is a map, papa.
But very ‘cardboardy’, and its very ‘papery’.
And if we break this cardboard, I’ve seen they break very easily
When you fold them like paper to make a card.
(Zenzi’s riposte)
Short Bios:
Tara Sanyal Goswami a.k.a. Zenzi is five. She loves dancing Kathak and has many (imaginary) children to teach.
Amlanjyoti Goswami’s poetry has been published around the world, including his recent collection, River Wedding (Poetrywala) which has been widely reviewed.
This is their first poetry collaboration.
In a western town
above montana
in the foothills
of the rockies
with their charcoal peaks
a little girl in diapers
getting potty trained
with the nickname Keeks
in a highchair
slapping her big spoon
into no-name weiners
and macaroni
cuz i didn’t have the rent
for her mother, my sister
a no show for work
hanging out
in bars and libraries
the night she drove me out
to a house
to buy a used typewriter
with a traveling case
and how she’d spend
the last hours
of each day
with a vodka cooler
and a romance novel
picking up
where she’d left off
at the overturned page
(Ken Smith)