Go veggie with today’s prompt from Gabrielle O’Donovan.
With shortages and rocketing prices, and even the government praising the turnip, here is a chance to celebrate our veg and show them some love. Use over the top, extravagant language, be personal and have fun. Don’t worry about form, the ‘irregular ode’ seems pretty relaxed. Maybe use a rhyme or two if they come easily. You could look up some of Pablo Neruda’s brilliant odes to vegetables ( for example onions, potatoes and tomatoes ). Here is one of mine.
Ode to a French Bean
slouched languid
up my fence
svelte and exotic
so Frenchly smooth
with your violet flowers
and pods indigo chic
juicy, crunchy scrumptious
no freight miles
no plastic
nurtured on my windowsill
how virtuous
how fantastic
Gabrielle O’Donovan
(published in The French Literary Review, Issue 39, March 2023)
Gabrielle O’Donovan is an Australian living in Greater Manchester. Her poems have been published in magazines and anthologies in the U.K, France and Australia and alongside art exhibitions.
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Poetry Non-Stop 
Ode to my first watermelon
they say you’re not a fruit
i hear you murmuring to tomatoes
about our nomenclature
you rise
100 days from seeding
i rise
100 days
from new year’s day
it’s a coincidence
that smiles like a sudden shower
i take temperatures
i check clouds & soil moods
i’ll do my best
the rest is up to the very beginning of us all
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