Unit 7

Lecture

What if or I remember Poems

In this unit we again work with memory as the trigger for poems. In looking back, we have all made difficult choices in life – chosen the “path least taken” sometimes. Or maybe we played it safe and stuck with the easy choice.

In “what if” poems, we simply allow our imagination to run free and follow the choice we didn’t take, the other option. Imagining a chain of consequences that might have occurred can be serious or funny – I suppose that would depend on how happy you are now with the choice you made at the time. Thinking about the person you might have been or where you might have been can be very revealing.

The “what if” or “memory” poem can have the following characteristics:

• tough choices you have faced in your life,
• a sense that because there was a choice – there was another option
• a list of imaginary chain of consequences that might have followed, if you had chosen the alternative.
• a sense that the poet is looking back or remembering the scene
• a sense that the poet learns from this “memory.”

In this example poem there are several phrases that indicate that the poet is thinking “what if”; these are marked in red.

The use of “twenty-two” years gives us a sense of how long ago the poet made his choice.

Bryan Pendargast

Reunion in the Donut Shop

Twenty-two years. She looked her age

in the florescence

of Dunkin’ Donuts. I could have saved her

from that. She could have saved me

from irony, her checkered-table cloth sense

of humor, light on

in each of her eyes. So many nights

we sat above the city

in my black Mercury

we thought we were gods. We would have had

six kids and a dozen TV’s a Jesus

in every window, and for all that a short

time of it.

Explication

Reader’s Response 7

• Choose one of your poet’s poems from your reader this semester that has a sense of “what if” or is a strong memory poem.
• Find at least 3 ways the poem fulfills the requirements of a “what if” or “memory” poem.
• Using cut and paste, send the poem and your examples from the poem to me. (you’ll have to type your poem into the email)

Poem Assignment 7

· Using any of the topics from the free writing exercises write a “what if” or “memory” poem.

· Give the poem a title.

· Make sure the poem is long enough to feel movement - a beginning, middle and end.

· Make sure your poem has the elements for this type of poem as defined in the section – “What if” or “Memory” Poem.

Welcome

Orientation

Lectures & Assignments