I have found that one of
the most difficult things to write about is my own body. We have such an
incredibly complex relationship with our body, loving it, hating it, being
proud or ashamed of it. Our culture, our parents, our lovers add their two or
three cents to how we feel and think about our body. For this exercise, make a
list of your body's parts and free-associate images
to accompany those parts.
For example:
legs -- oak trees, fence
post with ivy growing on it
teeth -- gate at the
mouth of a cave
and so on.
Try to come up with at
least a couple of images for each body part. Don't worry if they don't make
sense or seem negative.
Then write your poems using these images. Things you might try:
1) syllable OR word-count lines,
2) a
pantoum or a villanelle
3) direct address
4) a poem
about someone else's body, someone you know intimately or someone you don't
know at all but can use your imagination
Some poems about the body: When the Body by Linda Hogan, My Mother's Body by Marge Piercy, almost everything Sharon Olds ever wrote.
Here's an untitled first draft of my poem I wrote from this exercise.....
My body hosts torturers and train cars,
a cardboard box full of rivers, a satin-lined casket.
There is a collection of bric-a-brac I never ordered,
and a great many pieces of broken glass.
A cardboard box full of rivers, a satin-lined casket,
I can make handcuffs from my hair
and a great many pieces of broken glass.
My body exists to carry these hands.
I can make rope from my hair
to tie to the rafters, to lift up the boat.
My body exists to carry these hands,
these makers, these touchers, these ten-eyed.
I tie to the rafters and lift up the boat
and wonder at all this body can give me,
these makers, these ten-eyed touchers.
After this body is gone there’s nothing.
I wonder at all this body gives me,
the bric-a-brac scattered in the satin-lined casket.
After this body is gone there’s nothing,
just a cardboard box full of rivers, handcuffs made of hair.
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