Poetics 2

I really enjoyed writing my list poem! I actually spent more time deciding what my list would be than writing the final version. I have about three pages in my notebook of titles/ideas for other lists. I began a few of them, even wrote one in its entirety, and finally decided on "Dead Things", which was actually a suggestion by my boyfriend who was intrigued by the assignment when I told him about it. He also suggested a few things I could include in the list, but they didn't quite fit with the picture I was creating. The line about the peonies came to me immediately when he suggested the title, because my father had recently picked some peonies from the bush in our backyard. They were sitting in the kitchen window in a vase, and although they were still colorful, they were beginning to wrinkle and shrivel up slightly. I actually took quite a few photos of the peonies at this stage, and if I am able I will try to post one here. That line began as the first stanza in the piece, and then I wrote the others slowly keeping in mind what sort of feel I wanted the piece to have. It is a list, but there are only a few things included. Each set of two lines creates a picture, I think, of the dead thing itself instead of just listing it alone. The descriptions leave much to the imagination, but also I feel they guide the reader to very specific "dead" imagery.