355) Is This a Poem?

Caution.
The beverage you
are about to
consume
is very hot.

I took a creative writing course at the local community college the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in high school. The very first class, the teacher wrote the above - taken off a Starbucks cup - on the board and asked whether or not it was a poem.

Somehow this little demonstration always stuck with me. The idea of manipulating words, line breaks and structure to create meaning outside of the literal. I've always had an appreciation of poetry, and have been on an extra kick as of late. It's poetry month over at Knopf, which means I get a poem in my inbox every day in April (sign up! it's lovely).

All this has made me think about online conversations as potential poetry. As wonderful as they are, face to face conversations are lost unless recorded. Online - whether it be a chat log, email chain or Facebook comment thread - provides a wealth of words just waiting to be worked with.