While writing my poem in response to Cate Marvin’s Fragment of the Head of a Queen, I focused on my use of surreal imagery and pronouns.
Before I had even finished reading Marvin’s poetry collection, I couldn’t stop thinking about certain images Marvin had written. One was from her poem “Lines for a Mentor” in which she described “bees [crowding] a trashcan: a bouquet of stings” (13). This image made me think of a little, hand-drawn cartoon trashcan with a cloud above it, and little stingers poking out of the cloud—it’s an image I still can’t get out of my head. Another description she wrote, this time from “Pan,” was about how the speaker “might learn how to find the udder of/the sky, suck its blue-milk” (17). This image made me think of rain, and it ultimately became my source of inspiration for my poem response to her collection.
At the time it had just finished raining heavily at Arizona State University, which is, of course, located in the usually-very-dry desert. I had been sitting just inside one of the buildings when I saw the janitorial staff use pumps to draw the rainwater away from the building. In areas where they had already cleared the water, the sidewalk had already dried, and, when I went outside, already emanated heat. This stark contrast in moisture connected with that image of suckling the sky’s milk. Before I actually began to write my poem, I determined I would incorporate dry versus wet descriptions.
Unlike other poems, which I usually begin writing when I have some sort of idea, I focused more on brainstorming for this poem instead of jumping right into the writing. Many of my previous poem used surreal imagery, so I found I was generally comfortable imitating this aspect of Marvin’s work. However, I decided to try a prewriting exercise, so I could better plan out my idea of contrasting the wet and the dry. Because these were the types of diction I was going to use, I chose to create a list of synonyms for each. Poring over my little dictionary app, I scribbled as many synonyms for wet as I could—a surprisingly easy task what with all the rain outside. I wrote down words like damp, wash, bathed, waterlogged, engorges, swollen, etc. I ended up with about twenty words.
Despite my ease in jotting down “wet” adjectives, I found dry diction to be much more difficult—there were only so many adjectives in the dictionary for dry. There were words like cracked, arid, sear, parch, scorch, etc., many of which held a connotation involving fire or flame. I determined it would be best to avoid this fire diction, because I didn’t want my poem to be the typical fire versus water idea. I specifically wanted wet versus dry, because I could use more textures, sounds, and images, as opposed to trying to think of different ways of describing fire.
I eventually moved from dry adjectives and focused more on descriptive nouns. After all, Marvin had used words such as “bruise necklace” for bite and treated the abstraction always like a thing—she focused on her nouns! As many of my previous creative writing professors have professed, the best writing uses interesting nouns in place of a dozen interesting adjectives. Don’t write the “amazingly beautiful woman,” they would say, write “goddess” or “temptress.” Use your nouns! As a result, I found words like husk, drought, prune, and even more when I also searched for interesting verbs. With this list of words in mind, I wrote lines like “splintered/bones of rivers groan, split from their beds” and “husks of our bodies/engorge,…/shimmering in viridian bursts.” Using my brainstorming list, I was able to write stronger descriptions that were much more intriguing to read, and helped me achieve more surreal images reminiscent of Marvin.
In addition to my use of surreal imagery, I also took this opportunity to focus on my use of pronouns. One particular poem of Marvin’s that caught my attention was “Your Call is Very Important to Us,” which is written from the first person, plural perspective (i.e. “we”). In this poem, Marvin is a little vague to whom exactly the “we” refers. Based on the title, I at first thought of a phone company, which makes sense since company representatives often use the pronoun “we” when speaking on behalf of the company; however, Marvin used the term “siren cry” and also wrote “Here, have/a drink on us; we’ll have a drink on you” (32). These excerpts suggest something more romantic and even sinister, especially considering the reputation of a siren call. Because of this poem, I attempted to use the “we” pronoun, as well, for the perspective of a romantic couple. In order to avoid overt ambiguity, I also used sexual undertones to help make the relationship of the “we” perspective clear. For example, I wrote “husks of our bodies/engorge, sweat on temples,/shimmering in viridian bursts—//we rise together.”
Even though I added these details to help clarify the “we” perspective, I still ran into the problem of lacking character detail in regards to those behind the “we.” Marvin’s poem also lacks the character details behind the “we,” but she balances this by adding a “you” and showing the relationship between both to help develop their characteristics. For instance, Marvin writes “you’ll wake at last from/your fever, your fright, and know you knew/we’d call, that you’ve been waiting for us/all along” (31). Marvin develops the characters and their relationship through their reactions to each other. Although I, at first, tried to easily slip a “you” into my poem, I had a difficult time on developing who the “you” would be and what his/her relationship would be to the “we.” Would the “you” be a child, a friend, a third wheel? To deal with this issue, I created a mini-profile for each character, listing several different aspects of each perspective and how those would affect the relationships among the characters.
Even though I haven’t quite worked out the details of my new poem draft, I’ve found that this type of prewriting has immensely helped me in writing several other poems. I always thought of prewriting as something reserved for lengthy stories and those pesky, five-paragraph essays; however, prewriting exercises are just as functional in less-than-twenty-line poems as they are in the longest essays.
Before I had even finished reading Marvin’s poetry collection, I couldn’t stop thinking about certain images Marvin had written. One was from her poem “Lines for a Mentor” in which she described “bees [crowding] a trashcan: a bouquet of stings” (13). This image made me think of a little, hand-drawn cartoon trashcan with a cloud above it, and little stingers poking out of the cloud—it’s an image I still can’t get out of my head. Another description she wrote, this time from “Pan,” was about how the speaker “might learn how to find the udder of/the sky, suck its blue-milk” (17). This image made me think of rain, and it ultimately became my source of inspiration for my poem response to her collection.
At the time it had just finished raining heavily at Arizona State University, which is, of course, located in the usually-very-dry desert. I had been sitting just inside one of the buildings when I saw the janitorial staff use pumps to draw the rainwater away from the building. In areas where they had already cleared the water, the sidewalk had already dried, and, when I went outside, already emanated heat. This stark contrast in moisture connected with that image of suckling the sky’s milk. Before I actually began to write my poem, I determined I would incorporate dry versus wet descriptions.
Unlike other poems, which I usually begin writing when I have some sort of idea, I focused more on brainstorming for this poem instead of jumping right into the writing. Many of my previous poem used surreal imagery, so I found I was generally comfortable imitating this aspect of Marvin’s work. However, I decided to try a prewriting exercise, so I could better plan out my idea of contrasting the wet and the dry. Because these were the types of diction I was going to use, I chose to create a list of synonyms for each. Poring over my little dictionary app, I scribbled as many synonyms for wet as I could—a surprisingly easy task what with all the rain outside. I wrote down words like damp, wash, bathed, waterlogged, engorges, swollen, etc. I ended up with about twenty words.
Despite my ease in jotting down “wet” adjectives, I found dry diction to be much more difficult—there were only so many adjectives in the dictionary for dry. There were words like cracked, arid, sear, parch, scorch, etc., many of which held a connotation involving fire or flame. I determined it would be best to avoid this fire diction, because I didn’t want my poem to be the typical fire versus water idea. I specifically wanted wet versus dry, because I could use more textures, sounds, and images, as opposed to trying to think of different ways of describing fire.
I eventually moved from dry adjectives and focused more on descriptive nouns. After all, Marvin had used words such as “bruise necklace” for bite and treated the abstraction always like a thing—she focused on her nouns! As many of my previous creative writing professors have professed, the best writing uses interesting nouns in place of a dozen interesting adjectives. Don’t write the “amazingly beautiful woman,” they would say, write “goddess” or “temptress.” Use your nouns! As a result, I found words like husk, drought, prune, and even more when I also searched for interesting verbs. With this list of words in mind, I wrote lines like “splintered/bones of rivers groan, split from their beds” and “husks of our bodies/engorge,…/shimmering in viridian bursts.” Using my brainstorming list, I was able to write stronger descriptions that were much more intriguing to read, and helped me achieve more surreal images reminiscent of Marvin.
In addition to my use of surreal imagery, I also took this opportunity to focus on my use of pronouns. One particular poem of Marvin’s that caught my attention was “Your Call is Very Important to Us,” which is written from the first person, plural perspective (i.e. “we”). In this poem, Marvin is a little vague to whom exactly the “we” refers. Based on the title, I at first thought of a phone company, which makes sense since company representatives often use the pronoun “we” when speaking on behalf of the company; however, Marvin used the term “siren cry” and also wrote “Here, have/a drink on us; we’ll have a drink on you” (32). These excerpts suggest something more romantic and even sinister, especially considering the reputation of a siren call. Because of this poem, I attempted to use the “we” pronoun, as well, for the perspective of a romantic couple. In order to avoid overt ambiguity, I also used sexual undertones to help make the relationship of the “we” perspective clear. For example, I wrote “husks of our bodies/engorge, sweat on temples,/shimmering in viridian bursts—//we rise together.”
Even though I added these details to help clarify the “we” perspective, I still ran into the problem of lacking character detail in regards to those behind the “we.” Marvin’s poem also lacks the character details behind the “we,” but she balances this by adding a “you” and showing the relationship between both to help develop their characteristics. For instance, Marvin writes “you’ll wake at last from/your fever, your fright, and know you knew/we’d call, that you’ve been waiting for us/all along” (31). Marvin develops the characters and their relationship through their reactions to each other. Although I, at first, tried to easily slip a “you” into my poem, I had a difficult time on developing who the “you” would be and what his/her relationship would be to the “we.” Would the “you” be a child, a friend, a third wheel? To deal with this issue, I created a mini-profile for each character, listing several different aspects of each perspective and how those would affect the relationships among the characters.
Even though I haven’t quite worked out the details of my new poem draft, I’ve found that this type of prewriting has immensely helped me in writing several other poems. I always thought of prewriting as something reserved for lengthy stories and those pesky, five-paragraph essays; however, prewriting exercises are just as functional in less-than-twenty-line poems as they are in the longest essays.