We Love Lists

Friends, this is the final day of the September Open Write. Big, big thank you to Barb and Allison for hosting this month, offering such rich inspiration and encouragement along the way. We will be back here in October (16-20) with writing hosts Anna, Cara, and Andy!

Inspiration: Lists

I personally love lists. I write several a day for various reasons. This might be one of the reasons I love to find catalogues in poems or books. As a literary term, a catalogue is a list of objects, items, people, or characteristics used to create a rhetorical effect. Tim O’Brien uses list after list in his powerful short story “The Things They Carried.”

Raymond Carver examines his fears in a list poem, or catalogue verse:

Fear

Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I’ve been told won’t bite…

Read the full poem here. 

Or watch an animation of the poem here.

Shel Silverstein is also a master of lighter lists! Here is a list of garbage from “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout”:

And so, it piled up to the ceilings
Coffee grounds, potato peelings
Brown bananas, rotten peas, chunks of sour cottage cheese
That filled the can and covered the floor, cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones, drippy ins of ice cream cones
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel
Gluppy glumps of cold oat meal, pizza crust and withered greens
And soggy beans and tangerines and crust of black burned buttered toast
And gristly bits of beefy roast…

(Read entire poem here.)

Process

Make a list of items you could list!

Here’s mine:

1. Things I’ve found
2. Things I’ve lost
3. Items in my junk drawer
4. Our old dog’s ailments
5. Words I like
6. Excuses for being late
7. Frustrations of teaching
8. Expired items in my refrigerator
9. What my mother repeats now that she’s losing her memory
10. Things I’ve forgotten

The list itself might be your poem! Or pluck an item from your list and turn it into a poem. Here is one I wrote using food words:

Chew on This by Allison

Kumquat sweet and butter brickle
Smoked sardines and deep-fried pickle
Sauteed mushrooms steaming hot
Onion soup is food for thought.

Each tasty morsel on my plate
Deserves a poem worth its weight.
My words are sticky, like a heart
Of artichoke or melon tart.

The sounds that rest upon my tongue
From pungent lemon rind have sprung.
Hot apple cider, cheddar curds–
Oh how I love to eat my words!

Thank you, fellow poets, for sharing your words and hearts in this space!

Our Open Write Host

​​Allison Berryhill lives in Iowa where she advises the journalism program and teaches freshman English at Atlantic High School. She is active on boards for the Iowa Council of Teachers of English, the Iowa High School Press Association, and the Iowa Poetry Association where she serves as teacher liaison. She is also a member of the NCTE’s Public Language Awards Committee. Allison is also an accordion player and a wedding officiant. Follow her at @allisonberryhil for photos of #IowaSky and schoolblazing.blogspot.com for random musings.