Hi, and thanks for reading! Today is Monday, so we’re going to talk about poetry.
If you want to go directly to the poetry exercise, and skip all this “recipe blog” backstory, scroll to the next subhead.
I have something embarrassing to tell you. For a long time, I really hated nature poetry. Writer friends who knew me in college can confirm this; at least one Sunday morning workshop was derailed because I was bored by trees and birds and flowers. In my life, I have regrets. I have spoken unkind words about Walt Whitman. And I even went through a period where I “didn’t get” Mary Oliver.
In my defense, Mary Oliver is nature poetry, though of course she’s much much more. Mostly, Oliver’s poetry is about being alone and being happy. I didn’t get that for a long time because I was distracted by the trees, and then I read Felicity. It’s a skinny book, but even though I now have Oliver’s Devotions, which includes lots of poems from throughout her life, Felicity is the one I’ve dog-eared and marked up. Half of the book is “about” nature. The other half is “about” being in love. But really, they’re the same thing: how a place can be a symbol of everyone you’ve ever loved there, how a person can be the only way you know to describe home. The poems in Felicity helped me understand that, if you let it, writing about nature can be a bridge to writing about the way particular places make us feel.
This is not from Felicity, but I think it does a good job of conveying what I mean when I say Mary Oliver woke me up to nature poems.
But of course I do not live in nature. I live in New York City, Greatest City in Da World Babyyyy!!!!!! I have consciously surrounded myself with manmade entities because they are what fill me with wonder. Still, throughout the spring and summer of 2020, it was Oliver’s poetry that brought me relief: when I was limited access to the streets and skyscrapers that represented my non-natural world, she afforded me space. Many of the poems I wrote during this period, when I was reading lots of “nature poetry,” were about the city I missed so much.
Here’s what I’m getting at: we’re going to write about place today.
In a recent blog post, Alina Stefanescu, who I admire with my whole poet heart, brilliantly connected the “field” of a poem with the open spaces we see in nature – often flat and plain on first glance, but brimming with tangled life. And of course, they’re places that represent sprawling, meandering thought.
When we write about the natural world, we’re often writing to preserve. I don’t just mean conservation as it is explained in 21st-century climate writing. Overnight, a cold snap can change where we find ourselves. And nothing will disrupt the mood of a poem like a sudden frost, or a heat wave that bleaches the grass brown, or a wind that scatters the fall foliage before you have a chance to capture it. It can make you, the poet, feel unmoored and unsteady.
In this way, writing about place is a way to capture a) where we are and b) who we are. It’s a deeper, more intimate version of taking a snapshot of the place you want to keep with you. Paula Meehan’s “Death of a Field” speaks to this struggle against a place becoming “solely map memory:”
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThat – before the field become solely map memoryIn some archive of some architect’s screenI might possess it or it possess meThrough its night dew, its moon white caulIts slick and shine and its prolifigacyIn every wingbeat in every beat of time
We write to preserve the places we leave behind and the places that are taken from us. Of course, most of us aren’t walking around in nature looking for bluebells and sparrows to inspire our next great work. But you can write to invoke any place. It will serve as both a window into your psyche, and a souvenir for yourself, a postcard of something or somewhere you love very much. Maybe somewhere in nature is the place you want to write about, but it doesn’t have to be.
Exercise: Write What Where You Know
Today, we’re going to write about place. That can be any place: it can be the sea, or your grandmother’s house, or a pocket, or a Taco Bell in Illinois, or a doctor’s office, or the city of Troy (ancient Troy or Troy, NY – your pick). It can be a place you’ll never, ever get to return to. It can be a place you’ll never, ever go to in the first place.
We’re going to do this week’s exercise a little differently: we’re going to do it in two parts, and you’ll choose a format in between. So, exercise-prompt-poem.
Think of a place you know very well. Whether it’s your childhood bedroom or a specific stretch of the Taconic State Parkway doesn’t matter to me. All I care about is that it lives vibrantly in your mind.Set your timer for one minute. You’ll be doing this five times.Spend each one-minute stretch writing about these five Ws – you can write sentences, answer in fragments, free associate, whatever is comfortable for you.
WHAT does this place look, sound, smell, feel, taste like? What color stands out the most? What kind of weather or temperature is there?
WHERE is it in relation to the rest of the world? Can you give specific directions? Are there landmarks that can lead us there?
WHO would you like to visit this place with, if you could go there (or go back)? Who was there with you during past visits?
WHEN were you last at this place? Have you ever actually been, or was there a time in your life when you just fantasized about going?
WHY are you writing a poem about it instead of going there? Why does it live so vibrantly in your mind?
Next, pick a format to write in. You can choose a more traditional poetic form, or you can give it a twist and write in a different format. This is that “prompt” I was talking about earlier. Can you write this poem as a vacation brochure? A travelogue or TripAdvisor review? A love letter? A Dear John letter? A set of directions? These are all just suggestions to help guide you if it feels challenging.
Set your timer for five minutes. Write your poem, using those words and phrases you generated during the first part of this exercise.
If you want to, you can choose a very boring place – somewhere like your office or the street you use to commute to work – and repeat this exercise throughout the week. Over the summer, I wrote a poem every time I visited Central Park. On some days, I took very ordinary experiences and elevated them to the same level as special occasions.
Here are two examples. This one is from when my friend Cassie visited.
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe Poet Goes to Central Park (Sunday II)Even in rambling grass, every lawn a landmark. This is the stage, an echo of tragedy still in the shell. This is the castle, tourists see-through in the sun like glass, sparking translucent off the camera and ruining pictures. This is the obelisk I visit for my birthday. This is the terrace, a paved place for prayer in a city that worships brick. Centered in the sky, the sun seems ready to plunge into the water, to splash itself across ground and flower and repolish the bronze, imbue it all again with superstition. Across from a dog run you look for a lighter, barefoot imploring the city’s constituents to give, give, give. And if they could, they would. Under an archway, I drop the bottom from my lungs, sing a note of no importance, let my voice texture the sandstone and the black oaks and the transverses humming the comfort of home through the brief wild.
And this one is from when I sat in the park and read in the sun because I had a sinus headache.
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe Poet Goes to Central Park (Sunday)Sickness borders the edge of the lawn. What makes it so great? Maybe the starchy wash of astringent sunshine stripping shame from sin from leaf from stem. I suck on a strawberry and red seeds my teeth. What has my blood become in the new world? Maybe a curative syrup for anyone who dares sip from the wrist. My eyes track a toddler and her sister to the swing, little bodies waddling like crumb-led ducks. What will my children be like, and when? Maybe their faces will be unrecognizable as their mother’s, pieced together in a foreign mirror every morning. In my lap, the book I’m reading sits open, even, halfway through. What will my book be like, and when? Maybe it is just beneath me, tangled in the sweet white roots of grass, burrowed through by worms and wet. It’s evening now but darkness is still so far away. What will I do when sunset, then nighttime, then winter take this day from me? Maybe I will find an answer if I bring the blanket, the basket, the book and the blood and the berries back tomorrow.
Very different circumstances! Very much the same place! And both poems that served more as journal entries than anything. My poem about walking around the park with Cassie followed the actual route we walked. Meanwhile, for the second poem, I just wrote down the things I saw any time I got distracted from the book I was reading, and later worked them into this “action/question/maybe answer” format.
Now, I look back on those poems in this stupid cold December weather, and it makes me feel warm and comforted and excited for spring to come back. I’m excited to travel to wherever your poems take me, if you’re willing to share them. And if you’re stuck in your home or office doing the pre-holiday grind this week, I hope writing a place poem gives you a nice mental vacation.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday with a dispatch about the things I’m reading/seeing/thinking/doing/eating. Talk to you soon!
Thank you for reading Hattie Jean Hayes. This post is public so feel free to send it to a friend or loved one who might enjoy.