Favorite Poem

...well, one of them. I'll add a little discussion about why it works for me at the end.

Why Fool Around? ~Stephen Dobyns

How smart is smart? thinks Heart. Is smart
what's in the brain or the size of the container?
What do I know about what I do not know?
Such thoughts soon send Heart back to school.
Metaphysics, biophysics, economics, and history-
Heart takes them all. His back develops a crick
from lugging fifty books. He stays in the library
till it shuts down at night. The purpose of life,
says a prof, is to expand your horizons. Another says
it's to shrink existence to manageable proportions.
In astronomy, Heart studies spots through a telescope.
In biology, he sees the same spots with a microscope.
Heart absorbs so much that his brain aches. No
ski weekends for him, no joining the bridge club.
Ideas are nuts to be cracked open, Heart thinks.
History's the story of snatch and grab, says a prof.
The record of mankind, says another, is a striving
for the light. But Heart is beginning to catch on:
If knowledge is noise to which meaning is given,
then the words used to label sundry facts are like
horns honking before a collision: more forewarning
than explanation. Then what meaning, asks Heart,
can be given to meaning? Life's a pearl, says a prof.
It's a grizzly bear, says another. Heart's conclusion
is that to define the world decreases its dimensions
while to name a thing creates a sense of possession.
Heart admires their intention but why fool around?
He picks up a pebble and states: The world is like
this rock. He puts it in his pocket for safe keeping.
Having settled at last the nature of learning, Heart
goes fishing. He leans back against an oak. The sun
toasts his feet. Heart feels the pebble in his pocket.
Its touch is like the comfort of money in the bank.
There are big ones to be caught, big ones to be eaten.
In morning light, trout swim within the tree's shadow.
Smart or stupid they circle the hook: their education.


...this almost falls into the category of prose poem; Dobyns is not overly concerned with linebreaks, although he does generally follow the oft-stated "it is best to break on a noun or verb" rule. Why it works for me? What a crazy idea--to take something like the word "heart," so over-used in general, and make it a character that stumbles about and gets into scrapes--I mean, really, what a phenomenal idea. He has a whole book of these. What I also enjoy are his use of questions--questions don't often work in poems, I find, because they end up sounding overly plaintive or philosophical. Here, he has Heart acting as a student--so, all of the broad-stroke questions fit right in with the theme. Finally, the last line/image--priceless. Very Rilke-esque, how it turns the previous narrative on its head (When I say Rilke-esque, I refer to the Archaic Torso of Apollo, and this famous last line: "for here, there is no place/that does not see you. You must change your life." (http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4486/).


Your assignment: Create a character. Try a name that you have no associations with (Harold, Bluey, Finn the Swashbuckler, whatever). Build this person/character from scratch. Base your poem around their actions--not on who they are, or who they think they are, but what it is they do. Let the meaning emerge from the pictures you paint (yes, an exercise in show vs tell). Try for third person, like above--we tend to default to writing in first person, so it is good to break this habit now and again.

If you're a bit more avant-garde, go for weird associations and unexpected word pairings--surprise the reader.

Feel free to post any resultant poems in the comment section for general reading, or send them my way.

~Dani