The Zingara Project

Tag: Mike Zimmerman

  • Hands On

    How do you…

    • ride a bike
    • bury a pet
    • plant a tree
    • plant your feet
    • recover from a broken heart
    • listen to the ocean
    • clear your memories
    • communicate with an enemy
    • explain your beliefs
    • spell the past

    Write a poem with a particular audience in mind using an instruction manual format and tone for guidance. Feel free to use any of the suggestions listed or invent one of your own, or explore a topic you have been mulling over recently.

    As an extra challenge, use the instruction manual form to provide direction on how to handle something abstract in a concrete way.

    Feel free to include a few imperative sentences and an oxymoron or two.

    Here are a couple of “How to” poems from Zingara Poetry Review for inspiration:

    “How to Baptize a Child in Philadelphia, PA” by Mike Zimmerman

    “How My Father Learned English” by Juan Morales

    “Woodworking Lessons” by Mike Zimmerman

  • How to Baptize a Child in Philadelphia, PA by Mike Zimmerman

    First, clasp the crown of his head
    like a football, a hot pretzel,
    like the accidental bird flown
    in you forgot to let go.

    Say “you can be anything.”
    Let him drink soda at breakfast;
    read him a story at night.
    Let this story be about

    A car or a dog or a fish.
    Say, “I wish you didn’t
    ask questions at bed.”
    Turn out the light.

    If you’re going to the dollar store, bring him with you.
    Let him buy Mountain Dew and sour lemons.

    Help him with his homework.
    When he asks, “we’re mostly water? how
    can that be true?” Tell him, “because it’s
    in the book.” You don’t know the particulars
    Except that Jesus walked on water,
    The Delaware must be a sacred thing
    despite the bodies in cold clothes
    on the news. Baptism happens in water.

    If he finds a blue jay with a broken wing, tell him
    it serves those Jays right for beating the Phillies.

    When hell comes up in church, he’ll ask
    “What’s revelation? What’s sin?” Show him
    The steel mill again. Tell him, “Son,That time of reckoning is not for us.”

    Mike Zimmerman is a writer of short stories and poetry, as well as a middle school Writing teacher in East Brooklyn. His previous work has been published in Cutbank, A & U Magazine, and The Painted Bride. He is the 2015 recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award from Gival Press and a finalist for the Hewitt Award in 2016. He finds inspiration and ideas from the people and places he loves. Mike lives in New York City with his husband and their cat.

  • Woodworking Lesson by Mike Zimmerman

    Again, I’m with my father in the wood shed:
    My aching wrists hold a rusted bucket of nails
    For him while he cuts two by fours. Soon I’ve shied
    Away, against a wall, as he saws, sands, and kneels
    For leverage. I’m not a very boyish boy. I’d rather
    Be in my room, I think, reading a classic, some Homer
    Perhaps, or sweeping up the kitchen, or helping lather
    Laundry with mom. But he’s picked up the hammer.

    “Hold some nails out for me,” he says, once he’s lined
    The first one up and tapped it. Then, forcefully, precise,
    He brings the hammer up and down until few are flush
    With the wood. “Now it’s your turn.” I feel my soft flesh
    against my thumb. “What if I hit my finger?” His advice
    is action instead: he places the hammer in my small hand.

    —

    Mike Zimmerman is a writer of short stories and poetry, as well as a middle school Writing teacher in East Brooklyn. His previous work has been published in Cutbank, A & U Magazine, and The Painted Bride. He is the 2015 recipient of the Oscar Wilde Award from Gival Press and a finalist for the Hewitt Award in 2016. He finds inspiration and ideas from the people and places he loves. Mike lives in New York City with his husband and their cat.