This month’s prompt comes from The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach, edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell. The idea is to write a poem in which we build and/or take apart something for our reader. I tried this several ways and am going to include two attempts here.
Building the Backyard
Liz Garton Scanlon
The backyard isn’t made of
lawn or lounge chair
so much as property line,
fence post and picket –
a frame with the power
to make the picture
to shape the soil and sod
to direct the sprinklers
to contain the thistles
hackberry and dandelions,
to determine where
the swing set should sit,
where there might be
a slice of shade
over the kiddie pool,
where a patch of grass
gone brown remains
once the pool is drained
once the dog’s tracked in the mud
once the babies have outgrown
the pool, the fence
the frame, leaving
behind the bed and block
of childhood
Deconstructing a Mushroom
Liz Garton Scanlon
It is the cap I notice,
round and rusty red,
like a driving cap
my grandfather
might’ve worn
And tucked beneath it,
these papery gills,
that strong stem,
this ring and cup,
pushed open
as an Elizabethan collar
by the rusty-red cap
by the strong stem built atop
mycelium, the threads of family
Go here to read the others:
Tricia
Tanita
Mary Lee
Laura
And thanks to Carol Varsalona for hosting Poetry Friday this week!
Ooh, interesting approaches, Liz. I especially love the sense of passing time in your Backyard one…
Oh, you’re left with the outline of a childhood, once the backyard is… no longer anything but a fence. That is bittersweet…
I love that Elizabethan collar that the mushroom wears! I am so impressed that you managed to create two poems with such unique ways of looking at building and bits of things.
Both wonderful deconstructions, and so different from each other! I love how you tied your grandfather’s cap and an Elizabethan collar together with the threads of family. So much to pull out of that little mushroom, Liz!
You gave life to that backyard — life and memories.
Liz, powm about building the backyard is filled with so many thoughts, reaching into the past. Both poems are reflective.
I love how you wrote about both the natural history and the human history of the backyard. The ending was a surprise, as was the surprise that you ended both poems with family!
How beautiful to include the threads of family in both poems. I especially related to the backyard. Thank you!
Since I’ve moved, my own backyard doesn’t have those memories, but your own poem brought me to my own memories of the past where my children grew up, Liz. I love “a frame with the power/to make the picture”, will look at fences I see in a different way now. The extraordinary look at a mushroom, too, shows me what I’ve been missing, especially the “the threads of family” – sewing it all together! Both are wonderful poems!
Thanks Liz, for these two powerful, sensitive poems about family and the deep roots they both share!
Two reflections…first, “frame that has the power to” is a really lovely and vital phrase in the first poem. It’s such an interesting way of description. Also, I lived in a country where the idea of “yard” or, “garden” wasn’t a thing. This poem reminded me of things that were needed to describe what a “yard” is.
So many lovely images! I really love the slice of shade.