Your February Longette Prompt: Commercialism

The ultimate capitalist festival — Christmas — is not far behind us, but February 14 brings several new commercial and patriarchal opportunities…

St Valentine’s Day, once a religious observance and a simple celebration of love and affection, has also fallen prey to the ‘free market’.

V-Day encourages people to spend up big on costly flowers, chocolates and jewellery — and ultimately, to take that next big ride up the relationship escalator (to be honest, the church would encourage this too). Like to enslave yourself to someone for life? Great! It will cost you though.¹ And one day, a divorce lawyer’s bill will likely fall due.²

It can make singletons feel inadequate and spur them to ‘put themselves out there’, or just make them feel lonely.

Don’t fall for it, people. Marriage is highly overrated³ (and overpriced), and a good relationship with yourself is the most wonderful thing.⁴

This month in your longette, try focusing on an issue of Commercialism that bothers you ––– or on anything else within this prompt post that piqued your interest or got you het up. You absolutely don’t need to reference Valentine’s Day — or any other festival.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with, and to publishing the results on Wordflower. Last month we had four First Nations longette submissions and all of them have been or will be published. So please do Submit your work here!⁵

Haven’t yet met the longette? Click here to check out the rules of this new poetic form, and some examples.

1. An average Australian wedding costs around $36,000 according to https://moneysmart.gov.au/family-and-relationships/getting-married ↩︎
2. Around 30% of all Australian marriages end in divorce: https://www.avokahlegal.com.au/what-percentage-of-marriages-end-in-divorce-australia/ ↩︎
3. Can you tell I speak from experience? Lol. ↩︎
4. For some self-love practices that won’t break the bank, see https://www.betterup.com/blog/self-love ↩︎
5. Image from Pexels Free Photos. ↩︎