The Everything Writing Poetry Book (26 page)

Secondly, what room do you enter when you step into the house? Do you find yourself in the midst of a chaotic family room, littered with dolls, toy cars, and dress-up clothes? Are you standing in a foyer complete with a coat rack, shoe collection, and bucket of umbrellas? Or is there a stiff wooden bench and a stack of magazines, as if you're in the waiting room of a doctor's office?

One room to explore in detail is the kitchen. In many homes, the kitchen is the center of family life—the place where the day begins and ends. An example of a poem with a kitchen setting is Theodore Roethke's “My Papa's Waltz,” in which a young boy and his drunken father lurch through a dance before a disapproving mother. If you're writing about the kitchen in your house, be sure to give the details of the furniture and appliances, the food that is served there, and the view from the window.

Beyond the entryway and kitchen, you have other areas to explore—the basement, attic, dining room, office, bathroom, and bedrooms—and you have many objects to consider as well. What furnishings, tools, and belongings are present? How are they arranged? What passageways and entrances lead to these rooms? You want to provide an experience for your reader as she travels through your poem. Another poem you might consider reading as you explore the complexities of a house is Theodore Roethke's “Root Cellar,” which paints a chaotic picture of the objects kept in a storage basement.

Exercises

Once you have toured your house, you should try several exercises in your journal. Take the time to go over each part of the house—inside and outside, upstairs and downstairs, during the day and at night—and write out descriptive passages about what you've found. Even minor objects deserve significant consideration as you focus your attention on the details.

For example, if you want to describe one of the shoes in your closet, begin not with the general shape and color of the shoe but with the small spot of mud on the toe. The spot may be no larger than a penny, but it is a detail that you can describe and possibly attribute to a particular memory. After you have described the spot of mud, continue with the shoelaces, tongue, sole, and even the inside of the shoe, until you have given a complete description. Don't forget to use your five senses as you write. What does the material of the shoe feel like when you touch it with your fingertips? Does the sole look worn or is it still strong and shapely? Can you smell the aroma of new leather or the stench of sweat and dirt?

Public and Private Places

Two themes to investigate as you write about your home depend on the ideas of public and private space. The difference between the two can be identified fairly easily. For example, would you feel more comfortable encountering a complete stranger on the sidewalk outside your house or in your living room? Chances are, you'd prefer the former. Similarly, you would likely feel more comfortable spending time with guests in your dining room as opposed to your bathtub.

City Versus Wilderness

The distinction between the known and the unknown is a staple of literature. In general, people are comfortable with the things that are familiar and common, and fearful of unidentified or mysterious people, places, or objects. In ancient literature, this distinction is depicted through images of the city (the familiar) and the wilderness (the mysterious).

Cavemen kept a fire burning at night for a good reason—to deter any animals lurking in the darkness from approaching. As humans developed, clans grew into villages, villages became cities, and walls and other fortifications were built for protection. The city was a place of refuge, law, civility, and culture, while the wilderness outside contained danger, chaos, lawlessness, wild animals, and criminals.

By whatever means it occurs, the crossing of the boundary between the city and the wilderness represents a crisis. Many ancient stories illustrate what happens when the wilderness breaks in upon civilization. For example, in the epic poem
Beowulf
, a monster called Grendel terrorizes the meeting hall of the Danes. In literature, humans who venture into the wilderness often face extreme dangers as well. Think of all the monsters Odysseus encounters on his voyage, for example.

Home as a Refuge

On a personal level, your house is like your very own city. It is a place where you rest and recuperate, where you share your heritage, memories, and dreams with your family, and where your basic needs of life are taken care of. Everything outside your home can be perceived like the wilderness; it can be a place of danger, of mystery, and of temptation. To gain more insight into the dynamic of city and wilderness, read
The Odyssey
by Homer. The story follows Odysseus through his ten-year struggle to return from the fighting at Troy. This tale of the physical and psychological challenges he faces, and his final relief to return home to his wife, is as poignant today as it was nearly 3,000 years ago.

For an exercise, make a list of the dangers in the “wilderness” outside your home. If you live in the country, your list will probably contain many natural dangers, and if you live in a city, you will list more manmade threats. Keeping these hazards in mind, write about the characteristics of your home that make you feel safe.

Public and Private Space Within Your Home

Inside your home, you make a distinction between spaces where you allow guests, spaces you share only with family, and spaces where you would only feel comfortable with a spouse or partner. With the growing availability of larger homes and personal bedrooms for each member of a household, the distinction between public or family space and private space has undergone a significant change in recent decades. In America, the old image of an entire family sleeping together in a single bed or sharing bathwater has been relegated to the past or to certain regions or social classes.

The division between city and wilderness, or interior and exterior, can, in a sense, be internalized inside the house. For example, if you are throwing a party in your house, you might prepare the living room, dining room, kitchen, and perhaps a family room for your guests. A guest bathroom close to one of these rooms may also be used for the party. Private rooms such as bedrooms, family bathrooms, offices, and so forth would probably be off-limits, differentiated by closed doors and extinguished lights.

Guests who are invited to stay overnight are afforded a special sleeping area and bathroom—either a guest room or a family member's room converted for the purpose. Guests and family members respect the temporary boundaries drawn between them. Family members, too, understand that there are boundaries within the house even when no guests are present. For example, bedrooms and bathrooms are not to be entered when the doors are closed.

As a result of these factors, poems set within different areas of a house include varying levels of intimacy, privacy, or exposure. Theodore Roethke's poem “My Papa's Waltz,” for example, gives a private look at the family unit—how they behave when they are not around other people. Similarly, Jeff Knorr's poem “Not an Ordinary Wednesday,” included in Chapter 10 (page 131), is set in a bedroom and provides an intimate look at a husband and wife.

As an exercise, put the name of each room in your house at the top of a page and then begin a list of activities you do in each room. Which do you do with family? Which do you do with guests? Which do you do by yourself? Looking at the results of these lists will give you a sense of how public or private space is broken up within your home.

To write poetry set in these rooms, look at the actions on your list. Try for an element of surprise, playing against the conventions of public and private space. Set a poem about eating birthday cake in the basement. Or write about a complete stranger who appears in your bathroom. Why have the boundaries been broken, and what are the results?

You Are Where You Live

You have very likely heard the expression “You are what you eat.” Similarly, it's quite possible that others identify you according to the place where you live. Your home, and the city in which (or near which) you live, can give others a strong impression of who you are as a person. This impression may be right or wrong, but it still occurs. The same impression, dependent upon the way you describe a home in a poem, can be elicited from your reader about your characters.

Identity and Society

In the movie
Cheaper by the Dozen
, the oldest son of the Baker family, Charlie, has trouble signing up for the football team of his new school. Though he was close to earning a scholarship as the quarterback of his old team at Midland, the coaches of his new team relegate him to defensive back. Because he is in a new environment unlike the one he came from, the new people he meets make immediate judgments about him. He is also repeatedly mocked for having come from the country. These responses and comments are based solely on first impressions, and those impressions create an identity for Charlie that differs from the way he sees himself.