30 Poems in 30 Days 2009: Day Eight
September 8, 2009 by John Hewitt
One of my favorite kinds of poems (and I daresay a staple of the 30 Poems in 30 Days activities) is the list poem. When it comes to poetry forms, the list poem is one of the most straightforward. It is quite simply a list: a grocery list, a to do list, a list of favorite things, a list of problems, a list of places. The list can be common or obscure.
I can spend all day making up lists. Of course, a list has to be something more than just a list to be a poem. A grocery list is just a grocery list unless it says something that the reader cares about. This is where the challenge comes in. You want your list poem to have meaning. One way to accomplish this is to think of the list as a journey, that there is a path each item on the list takes that ultimately leads to the final item. Another way to look at the list is as revelation. Each item reveals a little more about the poet or the subject until at the end you are left with a complete picture.
Today’s Poetry Prompt
Write a list poem about things you have done in your life.
How I Spent 2001
Moved to Ocotillo
Lived next to a pond
Bought a Tivo
Listened to the same thirty questions
Twenty times a day
Without ever hearing the answers
Threatened a person who threatened me
Went to my first Diamondbacks game
Lost my job
Moved back to Tucson
Went on a three night cruise
Took the final tour of Hoover Dam
Watched two towers fall
Played a computer game
For thirty straight hours
Slept
Read
Wrote
Avoided my friends
Started over
Related links
- 30 Poems in 30 Days (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Issues (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place (1.000)
Contact John Hewitt
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Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
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So it has a name…
The last one of these I wrote, I was capturing the moments surrounding the death of my son. That list poem captures the words that were spoken at that time. It seemed to work
I will not post it here. instead I wrote another, dealing with a more common experience, one much less traumatic, or proportedly less traumatic, but perhaps you should decide…
Chess Player’s Thoughts
Pawn to king-four: standard.
Pawn to king-four replied.
Series of typical moves.
Series typically replied.
This sure is a pretty set.
Out of book.
The wrangle begun.
Claim the center.
Question the claim.
First blood spilled.
Take back to keep it even.
Position the knight.
Position the Bishop.
Advance the army.
Respond to the advancing hordes.
Attack the defender.
Attack the attacker.
What is he up to?
Lay a trap for the foe.
Side-step a trap.
Look for advantages.
The position is getting complex.
A brilliant plan!
Bring in more help.
A Pawn is pushed.
The plan unravels.
My king is exposed.
Shore up the defences.
Build a battary.
Threaten destruction.
Oh No!
Blood everywhere.
There’s no hope.
How do I stop this?
Pull back the army.
Save what I can.
It’s not that bad; I’ve seen worse.
Then again, maybe it is.
Think harder.
My head hurts.
It’s really pretty bad.
Can it be?
Don’t smile, don’t look at it.
Maybe, just maybe.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Rapid succession.
Slow down, don’t blow this one.
Will it work?
Coun it out.
I’ve got it, now.
Careful.
Check.
Checkmate.
“Good game.”
“Good game.”
Hand shake.
Wipe the brow.
Relax.
Breathe.
“Shall we play again?”
.
Love your chess poem, James! (A game I don’t play, though I do know how. I haven’t the patience.)
A Year In School
Came down to Singapore
Started studying
Had a cultural shock
Almost failed a test
Came quite near the brink of extinction
Slept less
Studied like mad
Slowly improved
Won a medal
Lost a competition
Faced the exams
Ran on fumes
Survived the exams
Slept a little more
Started the holidays
Rested
Then started again
Stages
0-15 Born and grew
Launceston, Tasmania.
Mountains, rivers, extended family.
Wrote poems. Went to school.
15-17 Suffered
in Merbein near Mildura.
Flat and dry. Mad, drunk stepmother.
Wrote poems. Went to church.
17-22 Studied
Melbourne Uni; Library School.
Lived out of town, inner city, halfway.
Wrote poems. Went dancing.
22-25 First marriage.
Postman, ballroom dancer.
Bi-polar, impotent, compulsive gambler.
Wrote poems. Went to work.
26-52 Second marriage.
Dutch-born builder, abalone diver.
Children, travel. Personal development.
Wrote poems. Went rural.
52-53 Second divorce.
Bankruptcy. Back to Melbourne.
Rented, shared. Completed Reiki training.
Wrote poems. Went on the dole.
54-69 Third marriage.
Writer, spiritual seeker, lover.
Moved to the tropics, small-town semi-rural.
Wrote poems. Went psychic.
70+ Yet to come.
The best, perhaps?
If I can put in my order now, it’s this:
Write poems. Go laughing.
Listing my life was so difficult that along the way I almost abandoned it and tried a different tack. You can have that one too!
Books I Was Raised On
Andersen. Grimm.
Gifts from my parents.
The boy with a splinter of ice in his heart.
The two sisters, Snow White and Rose Red.
(I wanted to look like Rose Red.)
Dickens, Dumas.
Gifts from my grandfather.
Dashing D’Artagnan and the brooding Count.
Nicholas, David and Pip surviving to happiness.
Sydney Carton nobly giving his life.
Jane and Rochester,
Cathy and Heathcliff –
Forbidden passion, dark romance
Alongside Anne Shirley and Little Women’s Jo –
Girls who were real, girls who wrote.
James Elroy Flecker
And Rupert Brooke
Grantchester versus a foreign field.
Yasmin and the Golden Journey to Samarkand.
Kipling and Stevenson’s Kim and Jim.
All the plays
Of Bernard Shaw
Heart-rending Joan, feisty Eliza.
Wilde’s sad Happy Prince and hilarious Ernest.
A Secret Garden and a Little Lord.
Hardy and Housman,
And then at last
Eliot, Pound and lyrical Yeats.
Miller and Synge and Eugene O’Neill
War and Peace. The Rains Came.
Judith Wright
And Gwen Harwood
Five Bells or a Magic Pudding
The Seventeenth Doll … and the Spring of my life
Turned into Summer, a new story.
Ach! Still editing as I go – take out full stop after “foreign field” and “And” before “Gwen Harwood”.
@Rosemary
If experience is the soil of writing,
practice the spade, and poetry the flower,
it is no wonder you have such a beautiful garden!
Sorting through memorabilia
Of the clutter over the years
I was surprised
By the frequent fond smiles
Appearing on my face
Looking through all the letters
The cards
The writings
I was surprised at the footsteps
And sound bites of all
Who has passed my life
Cruising through my stuff
Of you
And you
And you
So many yous
So many ties
So many
Through the years
People you once knew
People you thought you knew
And people you forget you did
All the you-s
All the us-s
All the me-s
I was surprised
At how many
Left
But more so
By how many remained
Changed yet the same
Others will say
How blessed I am.
I normally say
how cursed
But today
Just for once
At this very moment
I agree
with the others
I am.
Thanks, James!
I’m changing the ending of my second-last verse of “Stages” from “Went psychic” to “Went online”. The first doesn’t adequately convey doing psychic readings professionally, and might be mistaken for going psycho! Can’t fit everything in, anyway.
I am regarding all these efforts as first drafts. Further tweakings happen at my poetry blog, “The Passionate Crone”: http://passionatecrone.blogspot.com/