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.

DOG WALK POEM

Here's a dog walk poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Note how the speaker isn't walking but observes a dog walking and imagines its thoughts and perceptions and so forth.

("democratic dog / engaged in real / free enterprise") A politics of transportation: what is it that connects walking to democracy, as if it were somehow more egalitarian than, say, riding regal? And what about the politics of animals: a "democratic dog" as opposed to, say, an elitist cat?

For the digital music generation, it may be helpful to note that "his head cocked sideways / at streetcorners / as if he is just about to have / his picture taken / for Victor Records / listening for / His Master's Voice" refers to Nipper, the dog featured on Victor RCA records.

Although not a walk poem, James Merrill's "The Victor Dog" is also about Nipper. Click here for an annotated version of Merrill's poem.

LOFTIN, CORTEZ RIDE/WALK POEMS

A Black Lady

She sat on the Lex line #2
pink patent crossed feet
and goodluck fish danglin
from the wrist
Say hello
calmly nod but no more
cause she don't play with kids
Pink patent crossed feet
crust on one knee ash layin
in the thumb
How far down is she goin
Where is she comin from
and how far down is backin up
Stop starin
would if you could
but can't
cause spirits in her eyes say
she goin to the stop where you can
say more
and she don't have to hold
that bag so tight

--Elouise Loftin
(Aldon Lynn Nielsen on Loftin)


Under the Edge of February

Under the edge of February
in hawk of a throat
hidden by ravines of sweet oil
by temples of switch blades
beautiful in its sound of fertility
beautiful in its turban of funeral crepe
beautiful in its camouflage of grief
in its solitude of bruises
in its arson of alert

Who will enter its beautiful calligraphy of blood

Its beautiful mask of fish net
mask of hubcaps mask of ice picks mask
of watermelon rinds mask of umbilical cords
changing into mask of rubber bands
Who will enter this beautiful mask of
punctured bladders moving with a mask of chapsticks

Compound of Hearts Compound of Hearts

Where is the lucky number for this shy love
this top-heavy beauty bathed with charcoal water
self-conscious against a mosaic of broken bottles
broken locks broken pipes broken
bloods of broken spirits broken through like
broken promises

Landlords Junkies Thieves
enthroning themselves in you
they burn up couches they burn down houses
and infuse themselves against memory
every thought
a pavement of old belts
every performance
a ceremonial pick up
how many more orphans how many neglected shrines
how many more stolen feet stolen gums
stolen watchbands of death
in you how many times

Harlem

hidden by ravines of sweet oil
by temples of switch blades
beautiful in your sound of fertility
beautiful in your turban of funeral crepe
beautiful in your camouflage of grief
in your solitude of bruises in
your arson of alert
beautiful

--Jayne Cortez

ON WALKING, OTHER WALK POEMS & POETS

Here are a few additional resources for meditations on walking. You can find most of these online or in Temple's library.

On walking:
Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"
Michel de Certeau, "Walking in the City"
Virginia Woolf, "Street Haunting"

Additional walk poems and variations (ride poems?) off the top of my head:
Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," Alice Notley's Descent of Alette, Frank O'Hara's "The Day Lady Died," Allen Ginsberg's "Wichita Vortex Sutra"

So many other great walking poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Whitman, Baudelaire, Blackburn, Snyder, et al.) And then there are poets who love/loved to walk, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the poetry. Charles Reznikoff was a great walker, which appears in some of his poetry, but he's just as often "walking" through historical texts.

And where are the walking female poets? There's something bourgeois about the walking poet, even decadent (the flaneur), or at least there's that tradition of walking (walking tour) that requires leisure time, which historically tended to be the property of wealthy white men. Is walking now associated with the poor? Or only walking (not walking-as-art)? We'll talk about these and other issues as we look at walk poems in class.

Feel free to add to these lists.