TALKING THE WALK POEM

I've reposted below some of my favorite passages from your walk-poem poetics. The following passages are not simply talking about the walk (where I walked, what I saw) but identifying the relationship between walking and writing a walk poem: strategies of perception, including focusing on body movement; using a notebook; focusing not only on vision but also scent, sound, and so on; drawing on "found language" on shirts and signs.

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Instead of describing what was around me, I described movement by describing my pace.

I chose to use small sentences and the word "me" a lot in my poem because I wanted to leave room for thought because that is what I was doing on my walk and I was concentrating on how the world was around "me".

I took advice from the assignment sheet and brought a notebook with me. On the way I jotted down things that I saw, or phrases that popped into my head when I looked at something. This was incredibly helpful when I sat down because it gave me many different ideas that I could start with.

My only challenge when writing this poem was that it took a lot of effort to keep focused on writing about one . . . my many thoughts throughout the walk.

It was difficult for me to describe fall without using clichés of fall. I eventually closed my eyes, and this helped me focus only on sound, touch and hearing.

I carried a notebook with me on the walk, and jotted down the things I saw that either reminded me of her or the things that were in the “color of the day”- pink, of course.

I took several pictures that later helped me write the poem as well. A picture in particular of another team’s shirt, worn by a woman walking in front of me, had on it a list of all the words that were inspiring to me during the walk, including “bravery, heroism, and healing”.

I made note of signs along the route of the walk that gave statistics about the number of women suffering with breast cancer today and information on prevention.