SESSION 22 — The Poem as a list of Sundries

Photo by Anshu A on Unsplash

Discussion:

• We make lists all the time—groceries, goals, things to do, things to forget. But what happens when a list becomes a poem? When ordinary things gather energy through rhythm, image, memory, and strangeness?

• Here are two list poems written by poets from very different traditions.

• How do these lists differ from each other?

• What do we learn about the person in the poem based on the things that they choose?

• What do we learn about each poet?

• How does each poet use repetition, rhythm, or structure to build emotional impact?

1.
Kathleen McGookey is the author of four books of prose poems and three chapbooks, most recently Instructions for My Imposter (Press 53) and Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press). Her poems, prose poems, and translations have appeared in more than 50 literary venues.

Imperfect Self-help
by Kathleen McGookey

The things I want to understand are never explained, or explained in too much detail: how to find and rent a cotton candy machine which wraps a sweet pink cloud around a stick, or how to name a dog or a child so you both mostly adore the calling and being called. How to drown out the second hand that ticks loudly on your wrist. How to connect the dishwasher to Wifi. How to talk your way out of a parking ticket. How to use silence to your advantage. How to transfer a sleeping baby from your chest to the crib while you hold your breath so the baby doesn’t wake. How to perform a tracheotomy, how to find a dropped ring in a movie theater after the picture starts. How to run a movie backwards. How to remember your father’s younger voice, before he got sick and could only speak in whispers and finally not at all. How to shield your child from slings and arrows, but not too many. How to walk away from the mirror, the screen, the crowd calling after you. How to kiss with such sincere passion and technique that your beloved recalls it fondly, a half century later. How to say no with the authority befitting a monarch, instead of no, thanks or I don’t think so. How to select a spot for an oceanside picnic where no one gets impaled by a flying beach umbrella. How to disassemble a marriage. How to exit an argument with so much grace that all involved parties feel a quick pang of loss. How to tango or foxtrot or waltz. How to recapture that thirst to prove yourself because your life, by all accounts, has meandered like a doe through a field of clover for quite some time now. How to find a brand new penny on the sidewalk for five days running, the first full week of school. How to greet that penny with fresh delight. How to give the last bite, always, to the dog. How to stare at clouds all afternoon without seeing a face or a skull, animal or human. How to vanish completely–even an hour will do–like a wisp of smoke above a campfire, trailing a bright train of sparks.

2.
Considered one of the most important figures in contemporary Turkish poetry, Edip Cansever (1928-1986) created an impressive world of imagery. His poems explored the relationship between the inner life of the individual and their various surroundings, often by making surreal or even bizarre connections between them.

Table
by Edip Cansever

A man filled with the gladness of living
Put his keys on the table,
Put flowers in a copper bowl there.
He put eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in from the window.
Sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.
The softness of bread and the weather he put there.
On the table the man put
Things that happened in his mind.
What he wanted to do in life.
He put that there.
Those he loved, those he didn’t love,
The man put them on the table too.
Three times three make nine:
The man put nine on the table.
He was next to the window next to the sky;
He reached out and placed on the table endlessness.
So many days he had wanted to drink a beer!
He put on the table the pouring of that beer.
He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness;
His hunger and his fullness he placed there.
Now that’s what I call a table!
It didn’t complain at all about the load.
It wobbled once or twice, then stood firm.
The man kept piling things on.

Writing Prompt:

• Think of a list of things connected by any thread: regret, joy, love. things left behind, things held on to, or even a travel itinerary.

• After setting the scene start to list them. Have fun with it—mix in the bizarre, the tender, the unexpected. Write a list only you could write. That’s where the poem begins.