“Instructions to ChatGPT: Write a Poem in the style of Candace Kronen,” Poem, Candace Kronen.

Start with an insect. Or perhaps a galaxy. Make a small thing big enough to scare people. Make a big thing small enough to taste on your tongue. Write a list of everything you haven’t yet forgotten. Line them up in an orderly fashion. Skip me. Skip you. Don’t skip the earthworm or the baby shoes or the teeth. Cross everything out. Out, out. Change your mind. No, don’t change your mind— unhinge your mind. Let your mind off its chain like a shaggy dog. Let it scratch at the door until it breaks out. Out, out. Don’t try to keep up. Let it run hungry. You run too. Do it fast in the dark. Swallow the night and spit it out. Out, out. Say everything.

Candace Kronen is a poet and speech-language pathologist living in Ontario, Canada. Her work has been published in previous and upcoming issues of Free the Verse, Last Leaves Magazine, and The Rebis. She is the co-editor of an upcoming anthology If You Ever, a collection of poems inspired by the work of Kim Addonizio. Candace is also currently working on a collection of erasure poems crafted from news articles with the goal of exploring the intersection between politics, poetry, and the formation of historical narratives. Additional writing and music can be found on Substack at "Stories I'll Tell My Daughter" and on Instagram @candacekronenpoetry.