Dr. Darius Phelps, our host for Day 8 of #VerseLove 2025, is the Assistant Director of Programs at the Center For Publishing, Writing, and Media at NYU. You can read his full prompt here.
He encourages us to write poems about something we carry from someone before us, or something/someone we try to imitate.
Cricketing
I cricket.
I rub my feet together
to relax.
My father did it
and his mother, too.
It scares me
these repetitive motions
the oldness of it all.
I cricket.
Common Threads 
Kim,
I’d never heard the term “cricketing” before and had to look it up. I do it too and have no idea why! Your poem has the quick pace of rubbing one’s feet together. You’ve included an entire personal history in few words. I’m embracing this brevity and thinking about mannerisms I have that come from relatives.
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It is a very interesting trait, but more interesting is they way these pieces of our parents become parts of us – without us doing anything! We are not our parents, but parts of them are passed no matter what!
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My wife crickets. I wonder if she inherited that. I sometimes vocalize when i yawn. I know that my wife has noticed it’s a trait I got from my mom. She tolerates.
I love the line, “The oldness of it all.” Is it the generational history kind of oldness, or the…err.. oldness of the cricketers, I guess? Or have you always cricketed? Not really supposed to ask the poet that question. Rather I should just enjoy the openness of the line.
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