Townsend tried to revise the verses to make them worse — an odd request that one could read as simultaneously flattering and mildly offensive.

“As you might imagine, it was a strange process,” said Townsend, who teaches at Bard College. “It was like, ‘We love your work, and also can you write for this woman who is dying inside and feeling strangled and is a mediocre writer?’ That was a strange prompt to receive, to write a bad haiku about flowers.”

Strange as it seemed, it was an intriguing challenge for a poet, and Townsend delivered.

Early on in the movie, Lisa sheepishly shows her flower haiku to her husband after it gets panned by her poetry workshop. He picks up her notebook and reads aloud, “A dream garden blooms, rose, iris, phlox, but here? A white crocus pierces concrete,” and assures her that he thinks it’s good.

“They didn’t like it,” Lisa tells him. “Someone said it was derivative.”

Townsend said that having her verses fall flat on screen didn’t feel like a personal affront, since she was writing for a character, not as herself.