Poem About a Play

One great source of inspiration for writers is literature itself. Imitation of established works by newer writers was part of the writing-instruction created by the Roman, Quintilian, for example, some 2,000 years ago, and creative-writing teachers nowadays use the method, too. More often, perhaps, writers produce a work that expresses a response to reading they've done, or they use an existing work as a kind of rail on a pool-table, playing a "carom shot." The piece they write doesn't imitate the earlier work as it does play off it. In all of these practices, a productive tension exists between the old piece of literature and the new one, just as there is tension between a jazz-musician's rendering of a song and the song as it was strictly composed. The tension might also be regarded as a conversation. (Parody is a "conversation" in which one work mocks another.)

The following poem, by Meredith Ott, a writer in Oregon, was inspired by British writer Caryl Churchill's play about cloning, A Number:

A Number

by Meredith Ott

Me
well what do you mean by Me?
Am I myself because if there is another
I think I should know I think I should because because
I have a right to know because
if there are two three four or more
if there are eight me’s running around
shouldn’t I do I want to know
do I should I care and would they could they be like me
am I like me who am I like tell me, tell Me
I must be like someone
don’t we all come from somewhere some genetic make-up
some test tube of the mind of the body I don’t know
who I am is Me determined by someone else?

Could you tell me would you please
if you had the chance
or would you hide it from me?
if I commit a crime against myself do I commit it against others
who are me or are they me and do they feel it--
my suicide?
or are they satisfied
with life
life that has been chosen for them life that isn’t theirs for the choosing
or do they even notice
or know or care or stop to think or fear that maybe what they have isn’t theirs?
mine
could be
you made me. You made me…
they make me, made Me make them
can’t you stop it if you
don’t you want to have one
One perfect
what is it that you’re looking for?
have you found your one
have you found it in me in them
is it in me or from me
or is it
me
?
you
became the womb
you gave birth you gave me gave them gave you
you selfish
it was all for you I was
they were it was you
playing with god and science and where is my mother
the mother of all
I need to be nurtured to grow to develop
outside of a person sterile pure yet eternally contaminated
by the lack of self, family, being, purpose

raise me love me choose me
choose to choose me
aren’t I original only simple individual complicated complex
enough?
aren’t I enough Me?

Copyright 2007 by Meredith Ott