Use of the term "Easter Eggs" to refer to something hidden is, according to Dictionary.com, from the 1980s and the video games that I certainly remember. A short etymology can be found on that site by clicking here.
We will also use Easter Eggs in your writing this week.
Take something that is fairly well-known, such as a cliché, a line from a book or movie, the beginning of an historic speech or document, a song lyric, etc., and hide those exact words in your poem, flash, journal, etc. You can--and should--break up the phrase, and if it is a short one, you will need to repeat the phrase's words a few times.
Your piece of writing should have nothing to do with your Easter Egg. Use a sentence from Lou Gehrig's farewell speech in a love poem. Use a Toni Morrison quotation in a poem about horses. Be creative! Have fun!
Maybe we will create a new poem form with this!
I suggest an epigraph telling your readers (and to remind your future self) that there is an Easter Egg hidden in the poem. It will be up to you if you tell them the phrase or not; however, I would advise at least providing a hint--after all, how else will they know to look?
Stuck? Here are a few you can use in your writing or to get your thinking going:
I could work as much and eat as much as a man--when I could get it--and bear the lash as
well! And ain’t I a woman?
A stitch in time saves nine
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometime/You'll find/You get what you
need
You have left it to women in your land, the men of all civilised countries have left it to women,
to work out their own salvation
I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable.
No one puts Baby in a corner
For five long years I thought you were my man/But I found out I'm just a link in your chain
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can
do for your country
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
War is not good for children and other living things
Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight/And dance by the light of the moon
Birds of a feather flock together
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine
The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created.
We are not afraid of the growers because we are strong.
I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse
I know why the caged bird sings
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