Poetry Break | Catherine Pierce

Poetry Break
By Catherine Pierce
Guest Columnist

Slow down during National Poetry Month and write a “slow poem”—one line a day

Most of my days start with a to-do list. It’s how I stay focused on each of the many things I need to get done before bedtime each day. The list is usually a mishmash of tasks, work-related and domestic, pressing and mundane. Often, as the day goes on, I add new items, which means that I almost never manage to complete a day’s full list. The undone tasks roll over to the next day, and so on.

The list is a useful tool, one that helps me to be more organized and efficient. On the downside, however, I’ve become so accustomed to checking things off that sometimes I feel at sea, and even a little guilty, when I’m not actively accomplishing tasks, moving swiftly from one “to do” to the next.

And so I’m extra-grateful this year for the arrival of National Poetry Month. This month-long holiday reminds me, every April, to slow down. To make space for words and lines and images. To be thankful for this art form that grows in, and depends on, slowness.

To read a poem—not just to move our eyes over the words, but to really read it, sit with it, consider what it makes us feel and wonder—takes time. I urge my students to read a poem twice, three times, to look up any words they don’t know, to read with a notebook next to them so that they can easily write down lines they love or images that spark ideas. I remind them that reading a poem slowly means you’re reading it well.

It takes time to write a poem, too. “Time” means something different for everyone, and the occasional poem might come quickly, but as a rule, writing requires consideration, care, and usually a fair amount of staring off into space.

Speed is rewarded and expected in so many aspects of our lives; it’s good for all of us to remember that we can’t—and shouldn’t—rush everything.

For National Poetry Month this year, I’m going to try a new project—something I’m calling a Slow Poem—with the goal of reminding myself to put the to-do list aside for a bit and celebrate process over productivity. I hope you’ll join me.

This Month’s Poetry Break: A Slow Poem for National Poetry Month

As a way both to combat the constant urging of our lives to “get things done quickly” and to make some daily space this month for enjoying poetry, let’s see what happens when we write a poem very slowly: one line per day.

The idea is this: for the duration of April, write one line a day and see what you’ve got at the month’s end. You might write one concrete detail from each day, using a full sentence or a fragment (“The weather warned of straight-line winds.”  “My sister and I had lunch outside: burgers, sweet tea.” “Blue jay on the mailbox.”), and at the end of the month consider how you want to title your collection of details. “Spring”? “April Was”? Or you might set yourself the task of writing a narrative poem, unfurling one detail of the story each day. How will the story shift as the month goes on?

As you write, aim for specificity, detail, and words that spark excitement in you. And as always, toss any rules you don’t like. If you get into a groove and really want to write a handful of lines one day, go for it. If you miss a day or two or ten, that’s okay, too. The idea is to take the pressure off and let slowness be your goal, whatever that means to you right now.  

How will your poem unfurl when you give it time and space? How will you experience poetry this month if you think consciously about the ways that slowness can be a strength? Enjoy meandering, thinking, and exploring. Write your life.

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Catherine Pierce is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the author of four books of poems, most recently Danger Days. She co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.