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Poetically Yours - "Red Box Banquet Meal" - workshop writing prompts

WNIJ's Poetically Yours workshop panel.
Yvonne Boose
WNIJ's Poetically Yours workshop panel.

Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets and a few from other areas. This week’s poet is Jenny Bienemann.
Bienemann is a singer, songwriter and poet. In 2018, Bienemann wrote a book called “Haiku Milieu.” She had her friends pick a poem out of the book and asked them to write a poem about it.

A few years ago, her book “Sundays with Jenny” was released. She recently published “The Comeback” a tiny haiku milieu book.

Bienemann posts haikus on social media and has a website also named “Haiku Milieu." An email goes out each Sunday. Poets are invited to submit their own haikus that can be featured on this platform. Bienemann attended the WNIJ Poetically Yours Poetry workshop on April 25. During this workshop, writers were given writing prompts. Bienemann’s prompt was “Red Box Banquet Meal.”

This is a haiku chain poem. Each stanza has the Haiku format of five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second and five syllables in the third.

Red Box banquet meal
who says you can't have it all
just heat and enjoy

Made for microwave
though, the oven can work too
just not air fryers

That is the first choice
that has been taken from you
for your convenience

The ingredients
you didn't choose those either
You only choose taste

now with the great taste
of all natural chicken breast
just not with chicken

How much would you pay
to make fewer decisions
Banquet wants to know

Convenience it takes
while pretending it's giving
is a charlatan.

Hey, if convenience
has constraints I didn't choose
it's not convenient.

Yvonne covers artistic, cultural, and spiritual expressions in the COVID-19 era. This could include how members of community cultural groups are finding creative and innovative ways to enrich their personal lives through these expressions individually and within the context of their larger communities. Boose is a recent graduate of the Illinois Media School and returns to journalism after a career in the corporate world.