I owe this prompt to Judy Nugent, who asked me to write about a woman who finds herself so swept up in this crazed election season, and political news in general, that she might be called obsessed. No one's claiming the poem's a description of anyone in particular. But I have spotted the phenomenon. Look for "The Big Hunt" on Tupelo around mid-day. Here's the way the poem begins. 

By six am she’s scrolling

BuzzFeed and the Times, racing down

through headlines, pictures,

hunting Him, the sight

of Him grinning, fist like a hammer

above his own palm. Isn’t his hair

paler? Has the Post weighed in

on the impact of the color of his hair?

Morning and He might have tweeted

something incendiary. She needs to know

if He’s stalling out, if He’s

turning it around,

if Armageddon’s crept closer. Survey

Monkey, oh, please, Rasmussen, tell her

which lead’s expanded by

a tenth of a thousandth of a point,

Here's what made this one fun: I got to use words like BuzzFeed and Tweetstorm and Survey Monkey. I think there's an interesting tension between poetry with its long tradition of being high culture and the high-energy, edgy language of the digital news machine. I like to find an excuse to mix the two. And I also like to get a chance to go over the top, to be not quite so serious for a change. 

By the way, I'm hoping I haven’t given the impression that the character in my poem is dedicated to one party or the other. I wanted to keep that entirely open. I think media frenzy is a craziness that pops up on both sides of the aisle. And thanks, Judy, for the idea. It was fun.