Poetry Challenge #321: Kuh-CHING!

Money Money Mon-Ney!

Money Makes the World Go Around

“I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay. . . Ain’t it sad.”

Happy National Talk Money Day! (November 11th). A day designated to “teach people to stop being afraid of talking about money.” Despite the adage: The first one who mentions money loses.

$$$ Money Money MO-NEY $$$

The word MONEY three times in big silver letters

Wallace Stevens said,

“Money is a kind of poetry.”

Many poets have written about money. Here’s a poem about money by Edgar Allan Poe:

“Epigram for Wall Street

I’ll tell you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trade or leases — Take a bank note and fold it up, And then you will find your money in creases! This wonderful plan, without danger or loss, Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it; And every time that you fold it across, ’Tis as plain as the light of the day that you double it!”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Here’s one by Ted Kooser, the former U.S. poet laureate (2004-2006):

Selecting a Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful, and walking carefully up on my poetry at the loneliest moment of an afternoon, her hair still damp at the neck from washing it. She should be wearing a raincoat, an old one, dirty from not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses, and there in the bookstore, she will thumb over my poems, then put the book back up on its shelf. She will say to herself, ‘For that kind of money, I can get my raincoat cleaned.’ And she will.

And, finally, this one by Shel Silverstein:

Shel Silverstein’s poem “Smart,” which begins “My dad gave me one dollar bill”