Photographic Poem

Our Host

Katrina teaches English and German in a rural community in Osage County, Oklahoma. She has worked in education her entire career. This is her 18th year in the classroom. She has a master’s degree in Higher Education Leadership from Northeastern State University. In addition to teaching, she spent part of her career in higher education in admissions and student services and financial aid. It was during the pandemic that she began writing with EthicalELA. The poetry-writing community has become a staple in her life. Edging toward retirement, she hopes to return to Germany for further language study, continue writing and teaching poetry, and saunter daily.

Inspiration 

Serendipitously, I recently discovered two poems which focus on a photograph or a collection of photographs. As much as we like to take and share photographs, I thought it would be fun to challenge my tenth grade students to write a poem about a picture from their photo stream. It turned out to be a fun and rewarding experience for them, as the writers, and me, as their reader.

Process

Read and enjoy these photographic poems by Rita Dove and Jacqueline Woodson. We can assume Dove’s poem is autobiographical. The speaker in Woodson’s poem is a young boy named Lonnie. 

Select a photo from your photostream or capture an image of a photo you have on hand. Ideally, you should appear in the photo. If you remember what was going on in the photo, draw from your memories to recreate the scene for us. If you do not remember what was happening when the photo was taken, use your imagination to create a scene. Read all of Rita Dove’s poem here and all of Jaqueline Woodson’s poem here.

Photographs
by Jacqueline Woodson

There’s two of me and Lili.
We were little then, dressed up at Easter time
Big smiles – me with two front teeth missing
and my head shaved Easter clean.

Here’s Mama and Daddy dancing,
Mama’s blurry foot lifted up in the air.
Look how she’s laughing.

When I look at the picture I can hear it.

Katrina’s Student’s Poem

Authored by a student in my 10th grade Pre AP class

It was a good day for me and the boys
We were very excited to go hunting that day,
even though it was a long drive away.
Old Gunner got very excited when we first saw some ducks fly by.
It was the day where I shot my first duck and goose,
With that old Wingmaster 20 gauge.
It was also the day I shot a decoy.
We went to a pond here, and we went to a pond there.
And when there were ducks on the pond,
We would go sneak up on them and jump up the ducks.
When it was all said and done, we had several geese and several ducks,
And me and the boys got Gunner and took a picture in the sunset.
We drove home in that white pick-up, and we cleaned the ducks,
And later made jerky and some good duck steaks.

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe.