(Photo Courtesy of Bob Fiorellino)
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
— Mary Oliver (“The Summer
Day,” House of Light, 1990)
I love the above quote from Mary Oliver, and it was
the inspiration for this prompt. For me, it calls to mind all the possibilities
for a life well-lived, as well as the power of intention.
Mary Oliver is a master of deceptive simplicity.
She’s a poet who flawlessly and seamlessly moves from the immediate world into
something much more profound. Read on one level, Oliver’s poems are easily
understood, but underneath, between the lines, and inherent in her language
choices is an insistent voice, which never fails to remind me that no good
poem can be fully comprehended on a first reading—clarity with a hint of being
on the edge of understanding always invites contemplation.
For this prompt, think about your life. What does
your life mean to you? How is your life “wild and precious?” What do you hope
for, dream about, think about, and work toward in your life?
Guidelines:
1. Free write for a while about your life; focus on
what you hope your life will be like.
2. Think about the words “wild” and “precious” and
think about the ways in which your life has been, or you would like it to be,
wild and precious. Look those words up, explore the synonyms for the them. Work
with the words “wild” and “precious.”
3. Even if you are of advanced years, what would
you like your remaining “wild and precious” life to hold for you? No matter how
old you are, your life is always wild and precious. That said, if you’d prefer
to write about how you looked at life when you were younger, go for it!
4. Your poem make you see the world in a
way in which you have never seen it before. Hopefully, you will gain some
insight into your own life.
5. Begin composing your poem. Try to keep it within
the 15-25 line range.
6. After you’ve written a draft or two, put the
poem away for a couple of days. When you come back to it, look for “leads” into
other ideas and ways to expand the levels of meaning in your poem.
7. During drafting and revising, find
the “lifeless” parts of your poem and give them some strength through more
effective language (and imagery). If that doesn’t work, remember that sometimes
it’s necessary to sacrifice a line or phrase that you love to save a poem's life. One of the best approaches
to editing is to remove rather than to add.
Tips:
1.
Try to write in the active, not the passive, voice. To do that, it can be
helpful to remove “ing” endings and to write in the present tense (this will
also create a greater sense of immediacy).
2. Be on the lookout for prepositional
phrases that you might remove (articles & conjunctions too).
3. The great author Mark Twain
once wrote, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly,
but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when close
together. They give strength when they are wide apart.” This is especially true
in poetry. So ... as you work on a poem, think about adjectives and which ones
your poem can live without. (Often the concept is already in the noun, and you
don’t need a lot of adjectives to convey your meaning.)
4. Avoid clichés (and, while
you’re at it, stay away from abstractions and sentimentality).
5. Show, don’t tell—through striking imagery, a strong emotional center, and
an integrated whole of language, form and meaning.
6. Challenge the ordinary,
connect, reveal, surprise! And … remember that a poem should mean more than the
words it contains.
7. Create a new resonance for
your readers, a lit spark that doesn’t go out when the poem is “over.”
8. If you take a risk, make it a
big one; if your poem is edgy, take it all the way to the farthest edge.
9. Understand that overstatement
and the obvious are deadly when it comes to writing poetry. Don’t ramble on,
and don’t try to explain everything. Think about this: a poem with only five
great lines should be five lines long.
10. Bring your poem to closure
with a dazzling dismount. (Be careful not to undercut your poem’s “authority”
by ending with trivia or a “so what” line that doesn’t make your readers gasp.)
Example:
“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
