Celebrity Poem Assignment Using Dorianne Laux's "Cher"

After I posted about Twiggy, I thought I might try to write a poem about her, but I just couldn't get inspired. Dorianne Laux has an amazing poem about Cher--one of my favorites of hers.

If you're looking for a writing prompt, how about writing a poem about a favorite (or least favorite) celebrity? It could be Van Halen, Aretha Franklin, Leonardo DeCaprio, Johnny Rotten, Tom Hanks, Prince, Meryl Streep, Madonna, Eminem, Lady Gaga--but definitely someone you're obsessed with or perhaps have a bone to pick with (in Laux's poem, the bone is the missing bump on Cher's nose), and the obsession is her near-lifetime longing to be like her. Oh, one other thing: think about how you want to shape your poem-Laux's is long and thin, just like her fav ladies long tresses.

I don't think I'll be doing my celebrity poem about Twiggy, so if you want to write about her, she's all yours.

CHER

I wanted to be Cher, tall

as a glass of iced tea,

her bony shoulders draped

with a curtain of dark hair

that plunged straight down,

the cut tips brushing

her non-existent butt.

I wanted to wear a lantern

for a hat, a cabbage, a piñata

and walk in thigh high boots

with six inch heels that buttoned

up the back. I wanted her

rouged cheek bones and her

throaty panache, her voice

of gravel and clover, the hokum

of her clothes: black fishnet

and pink pom-poms, frilled

halter tops, fringed bells

and her thin strip of waist

with the bullet hole navel.

Cher standing with her skinny arm

slung around Sonny’s thick neck,

posing in front of the Eiffel Tower,

The Leaning Tower of Pisa,

The Great Wall of China,

The Crumbling Pyramids, smiling

for the camera with her crooked

teeth, hit-and-miss beauty, the sun

bouncing off the bump on her nose.

Give me back the old Cher,

the gangly, imperfect girl

before the shaving knife

took her, before they shoved

pillows in her tits, injected

the lumpy gel into her lips.

Take me back to the woman

I wanted to be, stalwart

and silly, smart as her lion

tamer’s whip, my body a torch

stretched the length of the polished

piano, legs bent at the knee, hair

cascading down over Sonny’s blunt

fingers as he pummeled the keys,

singing in a sloppy alto

the oldest, saddest songs.

Dorianne Laux