30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place
September 7, 2007 by John Hewitt
This is Day 4 of 30 Poems in 30 Days
Poetry of Place
Now that we have moved from personal poems into poems about the world around us, it is time to explore poetry of place. Poets have memorialized places in verse for about as long as there have been poems. In a place poem, the poet attempts to capture the spirit of a particular place, and perhaps use that place to reflect upon either the events in their life or the events that have taken place at that location.
Things to remember when writing a poem about a place:
- The more vividly and distinctly you describe the place you are writing about, the easier it will be to draw your reader into any other themes that you have in mind.
- Themes that arise out of the description will be the most likely to take root. Look for details that blend well with your thoughts.
- The more meaningful a place is to you, the more likely you will write about it with passion, but sometimes it is more interesting to look for a location you don’t know so well and imagine a history for it.
- You are a poet, not a reporter. Don’t feel as if can’t change the occasional detail. Just be aware that if someone with knowledge of the place reads it and catches the differences, it might annoy them. Barbara Kingsolver writes books that are set in my hometown of Tucson, but she makes up most of the details, which is why I can’t stand to read her stories.
- When you can, it is a good idea to actually be at the location you are writing about when you write about it. Plenty of poems have been written after the fact, however. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey was written five years later, and it may be the most famous place poem in all of literature.
Today’s Poetry Assignment
Get out of the house and write in a new place. Write about the place you choose to go to. Don’t just rely on what you see. Describe the smells, the tastes and the sounds if you can. Try to give your readers a full picture of the place you choose.
Today’s Recommended Poet
New Mexico poet Jimmy Santiago Baca has been to hell and came back a talented and inspirational poet. A runaway and criminal as a youth, he turned his life around and dedicated himself to poetry. His poetry mixes an appreciation of the southwest with a meditative spirituality.
Here is an excerpt from the poem I Send Prayers Out, from the book Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande.
At 5:30 I rise to run
In the cool pools of shade and light
No flies, no gnats,
Hand-sized carp glimmering lime-green
Along the river,
I send prayers out
To all the powers that be,
Because it is spring,
For the joy of jogging past
Red berry bushes,
Buoyant twigs agitated with amber sparrows
Skipping thorny twig to thorny twig—
With war in my eyes,
Peace in my Mechica heart,
I Run.
Recent Books of poetry:
Related links
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Developing Your Voice (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Persona Poems (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: About Forms and Lists (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days: Elegies and Memories (1.000)
Contact John Hewitt
Writing Content and Web Consulting
Email: hewitt@poewar.comPhone: (520) 261-6104
LinkedIn: poewar
Twitter: @poewar
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Why can’t I post my day 3 piece? Oh I do post, repeatedly, but it doesn’t show up.
I know Connie’s been having the same trouble from Day 2.
Aaarrrgh!
________________________
Sorry Rosemary, the spam filter is more sensitive when links are involved. I have rescued your post. — John
So I thought I’d try the trackback thing for day 3, but I don’t see any sign that that worked either. Any’ow the poem is on my MySpace blog at http://www.myspace.com/rosemarynissenwade
I’m not all that thrilled with it I must confess – but was trying to do something ambitious and subtle.
Off now to visit a place that isn’t my house!
Gallery Restaurant
The tree in the picture is blue,
surrounded by swirling water.
The drinks are hot orange and gold.
The waitress unscrews them deftly.
In his black leather jacket
he dreams, head on clasped hands.
A tiny light in the ceiling flickers.
The casements reflect moving shadows.
White hair flows down her back.
She shrugs thin shoulders.
The pink hibiscus is intense.
Small insects walk in its heart.
Wild desert creatures curl
up out of the sand, hungry.
The core of the lily bursts
with flame and darkness.
Letitia’s silver bracelet
shines like her mischievous eyes.
Hey there, one last try, I’ve been trying to post poems for two days, it’s not working. Now I can’t even find the ones I was able to post earlier. I tried to e-mail you but it would not go through. I really want to do this, but it’s not working. Am I doing something wrong.
Connie
My Entry:
Sidewinders Luxury Suite — Last Game of the Year
The suite is built for twenty but it could hold more
The first section is the air-conditioned sitting room
With two overstuffed leather couches
Facing each other across a black lacquer coffee table
There are bar stools and a counter
Set before an expansive plate glass window
Where we can stare down at the game
As we eat our brats, hot dogs, hamburgers and nachos
All laid out for us on a separate banquet table
Along with a selection of sodas and bottled water on ice
If we want beer or margaritas
It is Margarita Madness Monday after all
There is a waitress who comes along
Every few minutes to take our orders
The brats smell strongly of pork and summer spices
And spurt not-quite-scalding grease
Coating the tongue in liquefied parsley, nutmeg and fat
When you bite into them
Just the way they are supposed to
The second section is two rows of ten seats
Out in the fresh breezy air
But safely under the protective awning
We can smell the popcorn and watch the people
Walking along the promenade beneath us
Or we can look out at the game
Which is eight to nothing at the end of the first inning
And not in our favor
The sales manager stops by
To ask if we are pleased
And to try and wheedle
A sale for another day
Time is running out though
There will be one more season
Maybe two
Before the team runs off to Reno
For a quickie divorce
And leaves us behind
For a better stadium
And a more passionate following
Than the relaxed
Hate to be inconvenienced
Tucson crowd
I will miss the Sidewinders
Once the Toros
Once my childhood vision
Of what baseball was like
But I accept change
We are no longer a match
Baseball needs passion and Tucson is passionate
About so little these days
A transient town that has given up
Its obsession with old west and community
For a kind of relaxed lethargy
We don’t want to arrive on time for anything
We don’t want to drive into the sun
In July and August
We don’t want to be here at all
Baseball can’t compete
With our lack of urges
So a goodbye is coming
And it isn’t to be mourned
AAA Baseball is the friend we lost track of
The relative we visit rarely
And with one eye toward the door
Until it is time to leave
Goodbye
Oh, you brought that all to life for this non-American non-baseball-fan. It almost felt like my own experience!
And thanks for rescuing my previous.
Rosemary: I really like the structure, each couplet a vignette. I especially like the last couplet, which gives both the present and presence to the poem in a subtle way.
John: I agree with Rosemary. I also like that we get a chance to sink into your place before we find that it isn’t the pleasure we expect it to be.
Here’s mine. I didn’t quite follow the brief… there was an almost eleven month old difficulty…
I have discovered
you cannot write
a poem
at the beach
with child in tow
with sand in fist
with weak waves lapping
still cold
with gulls crying
with hand tugged
while watching
first wet feet.
You cannot write
a poem
at the beach
when it is
new and seen
with new eyes
fixated on the sand
the texture
the damp sinking
movement
beneath pink
feet.
Not while you
teach him
to shake and shake
it off
teach him not
to eat it
point to birds
point
to waves
to people
unseen by eyes
fixated.
You have to cheat
and write
when he is home
in bed.
[...] fourth assignment from 30 Poems in 30 Days . Poetry of [...]
After the Rain Storm
The room is nearly new now
Burgandy carpet replacing the old gray
A Big Screen TV where the cats used to play
And book shelves lining the walls upon which
Imitation art used to stay. I like it this way
The frame and structure left by my dead parents
The cosmetics up to me
I would never have made the change . . . but
An unusually rainy season pummeled the brick walls into
Submission and rain drops oozed under the foundation
Puddeling like a muddy lake under the rug
I had no choice but to replace it, no permission needed
The burgandy rug on the South End, and here, where the rot
And stain were worse, a golden oak floored alcove, filled
With books and trophies from youthful days,
A real cowboy’s rope coiled around my Poet Lariat award
The boom – rang a boyfriend brought back from oz where
I never got to go, A tiffany egg,
And a Big Screen TV, gift from my new husband
My, my, but my cotton’s grown high
And I am waist deep in the rich staple of life.
cw
Thank you cerebralmum. And yours is gorgeous! Cheating or not, I say you absolutely succeeded in recreating it sensually and emotionally. Mine is a free ghazal; Google will tell you more.
Dear Connie, glad you got through at last and yours comes to life for me too.(But let an Aussie girlfriend tell you, it’s “boomerang”.) I LOVE your last line!
Thanks Rosemary – I hadn’t heard of a Ghazal before. Sometimes I think poetic forms have more impact now that many readers don’t recognise the structures. The form of the form comes through without us intellectualising it.
Rosemary, love the ghazal form; it’s really fun to work with, there are so many variantions and possibilities. Actually I created boom – rang for its melodic effect, and for visual impact, the use of the hypen. The boyfriend always created a kind of crumpling effect in my life, and I was trying to express that in some way. I made up another word in No. 6 “evility.” I didn’t want to use the word evil because of its current political implications. Also like civil/civility, it implies for me a person’s perception of the state.
Rosemary: Nice capture of place. My only complain is with The “pink hibiscus is intense” I don’t know enough about hibiscus for this to be meaningful to me. Is intense good or bad? What is hibiscus like?
cerebralmum: Once again I am impressed with your tight verse. you captured the moment nicely, even if you had to do it later. (I didn’t sit scribbling at the Sidewinders Suite either, I must admit.)
Connie: A good sense of renewal and change. “My, my, but my cotton’s grown high” — Great line! Don’t know about mentioning the TV twice though. I would look at consolidating those lines.
Yup, you’r “write,” it’s redundant . . . I was trying to work in that new husband bit and got sidetracked. I keep writing online, duh! ! ! !
Ah, I meant the colour was an intense pink. Well spotted – I wasn’t quite happy with that line, and will have to do more fiddling later. What I’ve got is a bit of a cop-out but it was going to take forever.
Incidentally, I actually did jot down notes in the restaurant! (My companions understood.) I was just taking impressions – one reason it lent itself to the ghazal form when I put it all together.
Connie: I sort of got the sound effects thing with “boom-rang” but the visual threw me right off and my mind went into a bit of stuff about what you were meaning. It actually took me a little while to translate it as “boomerang”! I think it’s because it’s such a common word here and we are so used to it the normal way. Though as to that, it’s of course a Koori word that some whitefella wrote down long ago, and who’s to say what is “correct” spelling?
I like “evility”!
Check this out, I googled Hibiscus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hibiscus-stages.jpg
it is also called a Rosemallow — now isn’t that beautiful.
Connie
Thanks Connie, I wasn’t aware of that name; will bear it in mind for any future rewrite! Thanks for the research. The one in the poem was a painting of a hibiscus, even pinker than natural.
Cerebralmum,
I just wanted to say that I really loved your poem! I love the honesty and the way you capture the feeling of motherhood along with the beach. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for writing
Katie.
Stand
Fat free
full of beauty
she sits in her perfect style
unwanting of me
a smell of deception
the taste of bitter urges
the giving of nothing
with empty eyes but judging
I still stand
A man, almost seven feet tall
streight as a beard
on the otherside of the wall
eye’s filled with dissaproval
unwilling to let go
full fo brutality and judgmental passes
as people walk in
i’ve cried a thousand hurricans
I still stand
I take a leap in the dark
no way of finding my way out
my heart beats out of my chest
I hear whispers around me, about me
I have no where else to go
I have a chain holding me down
afraid to let go
wont let go
I still stand
You think I wont make it
You believe I will fail
I will let you down
everything hitds me walking through that door
sitting in this chair of unrealistic bondages
I close my eyes
I’m no longer here
I’m in peace
I still stand
My Midnight
I push out from shore into blackness
The reeds scrap the sides
Sounding too coarse and loud against the stillness of the evening
A glimpse of dainty white lilies stream past
I glide along like a single raindrop rolling down a windshield
I leave no wake nor make a sound
The paddle is out
The gentle chop …swoosh….chop …swoosh
Lulls me like a heartbeat to a newborn
My eyes drift upward…scanning the heavens
The stars seem somehow closer
Space seems such an inapt word for what lies above
There seems no space left where the stars cluster into a glowing cloud
Is that a shooting star…a satellite?
No sense of time or direction
I am alone…enveloped in midnight
The great unknown above me
The mysteries of the lake beneath
Small cannot describe how I feel
Exposed , vulnerable
But somehow safe, calm, serene
I stash the paddle
Reach for my bottle of Fireball
Slowly sipping
I catch the sounds of laughter from a distant campfire
An animal bounding through the bush sounds dangerously large
Who needs the day?
Who needs the sun?
This here
This now
These are the times that free your mind
“Free is the mind who drinks”
A wall
that is made
of hardened cement
plastic chemicals
and your fear of being different
that protects/incarcerates
a gargantuan
selfish cruel cell
A wall
made to correct and to serve
those who fambles
and veers off the straight road
A wall
built with inspiration and hope
to try organize and make perfect
an imperfect organism
A wall
that stinkss of
anger
fear
sorrow and pride
A wall
made by the same
pathetic souls that it jails
dirt-poor souls
only having enough
courage to make
but not to break
A wall
that can only be conquered
with a tinge of enlightenment
in the minds of those
who subscribe
to burn the band wagon
with your own choice
of a deep-kicking
quick fixing
bottle of vodka
is to be free
from an invisible string
[...] 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place [...]
[...] 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place [...]
Round Three
Squaring off for round three,
dog vs. snapping turtle,
on the hill overlooking the marsh
where the turtles deposit their eggs
like grumpy old businessmen still paying into
social security in their late-fifties,
background of reeds and water lilies
coating the surface of the pond but utterly,
transforming it, the way a few handfuls
of rose petals might reinvent bathwater;
so situated, the dog edges forward
off the path, into the tall grass,
while the small gathered audience
places their bets — is the snapper, all shell,
even alive? is there really a turtle
under there? — and leaps back
to the limits imposed by the leash,
frightened by the mysterious indifference
with which its advance was met,
and whimpers to its owner,
and lays low, and waits,
with a dog’s brief patience,
for the thumb-sized head
to poke out of that massive shell,
like a homeowner verifying
the local weather reports.
Hi.
I think the poems are lovely and it is my hope that you continue writing. I am a fan of writing myself and I do take some time to lay my mind to rest on a piece of paper.
Never stop writing!!!
I found this site through an old friend and find it very informative. I have not really wrote much since years back, but I have starting again and am trying to improve. Thanks.