Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the “Proust Questionnaire.” You could choose to answer the whole questionnaire, and then write a poem based on your answers, answer just a few, or just write a poem that’s based on the questions. You could even write a poem in the form of an entirely new Proust Questionnaire.
You can read here a 35-question version of the questionnaire.
Just before the day runs out, I am here with my poem answering the question: “What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?”
Busy day, hard question. I’ll come back tomorrow with a small follow-up poem.
I’m a pleaser baby, so why don’t you like me? There were no great tensions at home when I was a child, no grudges either dragging us down to the lowest levels, no, things were quite normal. Mamma, a mezzo-soprano on a mission to keep things levelled, always fretting over the neighbours’ esteem kept on saying, please behave, don’t do this, don’t do that, to which I always replied, OK mamma, if you say so. Daddy, a bit more diplomatic than her, having his way of making suggestions rather than pointing the finger, he would come with a smooth baritone voice I could not resist and say, you should do this, me saying, OK daddy, if you like me to. First time things went downhill I was in primary, my teacher—she could have been a nun if not for her infatuation with her manicure—bellowing like a real contralto, don’t you dare speak to me like this, and I could only utter, Yes madam. At times things got pretty intense, making friends was quite a thrill, but that girl with her pretty face was on a higher level, the lead soprano always bitching at me, if you want to be my friend don’t be like this, and I was like, OK, whatever you please. Things spiced up when the long-awaited boyfriend came later on, for he was young and begging for love, and I was dazzled when he sang to me in his tenor’s voice, I so wanna do this to you, and I somewhat unsure said, sure, if that makes you happy. I kept the same tempo until the final knock down—getting a job was the real thing, but my boss was out of this world, a proper bass, who smoked cigars and said in a thick voice, You’ll do it like this, and I replied every time, OK, you’re the boss. And when my true love came to me and asked, why don’t you, for a change, be yourself? I asked him back, how am I supposed to do this?
For something squeezed in at the end of the day this is excellent. The choral thread all the way through is so clever. Bravo.
Ouch. Though a very different journey, an uncomfortably familiar outcome. Well named. Though, ouch!