Unusual topics for Poetry

So I was reading one of sarah's incredible poems http://www.amicksarticles.blogspot.com/ . It seems she can write about anything! Flabby arms, however, well, that is an unusual topic for poetry. I thought about a book I just ordered. It is A Writing Kind of Day Poems for Young Poets by Ralph Fetcher. In it he inserted a Writer's Notebook page titled Squished Squirrel Poem. Sarah's flabby arm poem made me think of this. You can write poetry about anything.

Squished Squirrel Poem

by Ralph Fletcher

I wanted to write about

a squished squirrel

I saw on the road

near my house last week.

You can't write a poem

about a squished squirrel,

my teacher said to me.

I mean, you just can't do it.

Pick a sunrise or an eagle

or a dolphin, he suggested.

Pick something noble

to lift the human spirit.

I tried. I really did. But I kept

coming back to that squirrel.

Did his wife send him out

to fetch some food or something?

There was blood and guts

but here's what really got me:

he had pretty dark eyes

and they glistened still.

You can't write a poem

about a squished squirrel,

my teacher insisted,

but I don't think that's true.