Source Poems, This Is Just to Say: National Poetry Month 2014

Forget April Fool’s Day. My favorite thing about April 1 is this: it’s the first day of National Poetry Month.

NPM posters are available at Poets.org

Each year, poets and bloggers around the web host series in honor of NPM. This is Author Amok’s fifth year celebrating NPM.

We all have favorite poems. But I've been thinking about something a little deeper: Source poems. Poems that we draw like water from a well, again and again, to quench some thirst.

Source poems can be a well of inspiration, comfort,
and emotional connection for the reader.

For National Poetry Month 2014, I’ve invited 17 authors and poets to guest post about their own source poems. These might be:

1. The poem that made you realize you wanted to be a writer.
2. A poem that shifted your thinking about what poetry is.
3. A poem that changed how you view yourself and your place in the world.
4. A poem that you have memorized and internalized. Its cadence is a part of you.

A source poem is also:

1. A poem that you read again and again and again.
2. A poem that you love to discuss and share with others.
3. A poem that carries special meaning in your life as a writer or as a human being.
4. A poem that has a back-story for you.

Here is the schedule for my National Poetry Month: Source Poems series:

4/1: Series intro -- Laura Shovan on Williams Carlos Williams' "This Is Just to Say"

4/2: Dylan Bargteil on June Jordan's "On Moral Leadership as a Political Dilemma"

4/4: Jane (J.C.) Elkin on a poem from childhood, "Hannibal Clim"

4/7: Diane Mayr on a haiku by Basho

4/9: Jone MacCulloch on "We Are Waiting (a pantoum)" by Joyce Sidman

4/11: Mary Bargteil on "Little Gidding" by T. S. Eliot

4/14: Jacqueline Jules on "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes

4/16: Pamela Murray Winters on "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson
4/17: Dennis Kirschbaum on "Rain" by Robert Louis Stevenson

4/18: Janet Clare on "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

4/19: Linda Baie on "The Way It Is" by William Stafford

4/21: Pat Valdata on "Sea Fever" by John Masefield

4/22: Irene Latham's Progressive Poem Project is at Author Amok

4/23: Shirley Brewer on "The Singers" by Eavan Boland

4/24: Renee LaTulippe on "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath

4/25: Ann Bracken on "The Well of Grief" by David Whyte

4/28: Margaret Simon on "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

4/29: Tim Ward

4/30: Toby Speed and series wrap-up

I promised to tell the story of one of my own source poems, and how it almost got me into a brawl when I was a freshman at NYU.

Backstory: It’s 1987. I am a Dramatic Writing major at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. For the most part, my classes are in screenwriting, Shakespeare, acting, and video production. Tisch students like me only have to take a few classes with the general NYU public.

One of these required classes is freshman Comp. Composition? But I’m a writer! I had to submit my writing to get into this dang program. I should NOT have to take freshman Comp with the masses. It is beneath me. (At 18, I am wise beyond my years.)

There’s no getting out of it. And the class isn’t so bad. One of the assignments is to analyze a poem. I was editor of my high school literary magazine. I am all over this assignment.

I go for a poem that appears simple, but is meaty enough to make a good paper. It’s by one of my favorite poets, (fellow New Jerseyan) William Carlos Williams.

This Is Just To Say

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

From the Poetry Foundation.

I must have first come across “This Is Just to Say” in high school. Every time I read it, this poem is a source of wonder. How did Williams manage to communicate so much emotion in what appears to be a simple note, left on a kitchen counter?

My paper examined the characters in the poem – the speaker, the suggested “you.” I explored the imagery: icebox, plums; the implication that the speaker rose early and left the “you” asleep in bed; the sensuality of the last two lines; the significance of the title. These elements work in conjunction to sketch a romantic relationship, but Williams’ touch is so light, so natural, that the poem still reads like a simple keeping-house note. Amazing. I could read it again and again.

I saunter into class, knowing I will wow the professor with my literary insight.

I am not prepared for Student X.

Student X also has a favorite poem to share. It is called, “Papa Don’t Preach,” by Brian Elliott, with additional lyrics by Madonna.

Student X is offended that “This Is Just to Say” should be considered alongside the literary greatness of “Papa Don’t Preach.” He (she? –I was in a state of shock at the time, so details are blurry) argues, with increasing anger, that song lyrics make just as good, if not better, use of literary techniques than so-called poems … like that note-thing. You call that a poem?! How can that be a poem? It’s a joke!

My face may have gone from a shade of overheated red to full-on plum at this point. I think I may have blacked out – the memory is vague -- but not before defending WCW to the hilt.

Although I am older, wiser, and less snarky than I was at 18, this poem still has the power to communicate emotion and sensuality. Williams’ use of every day words and a simple narrative makes “This Is Just to Say” even more masterful. It is a model for my own poetry and continues to be one of my source poems.

Now let us watch, once again (because I can’t help myself!) “This Is Just to Say” performed by British actor Mathew MacFadyen. Pure poetry.