Creative+Writing+Poetry

We began our class exploring our own definition of poetry. Students described poetry as words, music, expression, feelings, art, among other things. We then looked at Eve Merriam's "[|How to Eat a Poem]." There were mixed reactions to this poem; however, overall, people sensed that she was asking readers to dive into the experience. We also read Billy Collin's "[|Introduction to Poetry]," which asks us to use our imagination and enjoy poetry without losing ourselves to trying to negotiate a deeper meaning.


 * In September:**

Our own writing then started. First we explored the idea of inspiration and how to get started. We wrote lists poems or poems that catalog items to tell a story, or lend a fresh perspective to a series of things. We read Jim Daniel's "[|Wheels]." Other list type poems we explored involved walking around the building and recording our observations. These exercises helped us consider our world with a closer eye. Some also explored conversations and the difference between written and spoken language. Another list we generated consisted of words from the last pages of the //Great Gatsby//, which is rich with imagery. We looked at [|e.e. cummings] for inspiration.


 * Late September, early October:**

We then moved on to looking at Imagism. Read more about this at [|Poets.org.] Students worked to strip language down to let an image breathe. We read poems by [|Williams Carlos Williams]. When considering Imagism, we talked about imagery a lot and looked at metaphors and similes.To practice working with imagery, students were assigned objects and wrote about them, then used the object to describe an emotion. While considering imagery, we also looked at [|ekphrastic] poems and looked at "Christina's World ." We also wrote poems about going inside objects, like Charles Simic's " [|Stone] ."We looked at guiding metaphors in Seamus Heany's "[|Digging]" and Thomas Sayers Ellis's "[|Sticks]." When I assigned these poems I did not know that Ellis was a student of Heany's, but it certainly makes sense. Leo noticed that these poems deal with father / son relations and the how the sons were both alike and unlike their fathers.

In late October we looked at Elizabeth Bishop's "[|In the Waiting Room]" to discuss narrative voice and memory. Students discussed its existential nature and the precocious seven-year-old who questions her place in the world. We talked about the "fiction" of the piece and how in you can write poems that are false memories to evoke an emotional truth. As poets, we do not have document things as they happened and have as much freedom as fiction writers do create alternate realities or different voices. We brought in childhood pictures to get in touch with our childhood selves.

We'll continue to explore narrative and lyrical forms and talk about how they often function together, as in [|The Yellow Bicycle] by Robert Hass. Many students feel confused by the poem while others are drawn to the narrative. I talk about experiencing the work without demanding so much meaning, like Collin's suggests, and like in more abstract art. There are other things to consider, like color. Students will also be given the task to also write a series of small poems that repeated a line that another student generated. It is a way to play with language, to think about what I like to ask: "What's in a Line?" And when you look at this poem, the meditation on yellow is quite lovely, and the juxtaposition with the narrative makes us see things in a different way. They may come back to it yet. These poems are still in progress.

Students check your inventory. What poems do you have? What poems do you need to write or revise? If you have everything and want to try something new, write a list poem that itemizes everything you are not or what you can find in your junk drawer. Try to write another memory poem, like the Bishop. Experiment with metaphors some more. How about some more ekphrastic poems? If you already wrote a poem about Starry Night, try another painting. Try small poems, like [|haikus].

Try your hand at writing a poem that is a letter, or an epistolary poem. Find this exercise at [|Poets.org]. Letters can be addressed to animals, abstract nouns, like love or melancholy, or it can be addressed to places or people. Here is an example that I love, "[|The River Merchant's Wife]." Be adventurous. You can also work on your writing portfolio and do any writing prompts from this [|website].

Come back and visit us to see what we're up to. More student work to come!

Return to Creative Writing

Character Sheet