The Place Poem

Once in a while I get the urge to write a “place poem.” Maybe it starts with a specific intent, for example, I want to write about “this house,” or maybe the poem starts out as something else and becomes a place poem. Maybe I want to write about this old farm, or the neighbor’s picket fence, or the view from my kitchen window. Actually, I have an editor friend who hates “kitchen window poems” because he sees far too many of them, but almost any other place will do.

You might find inspiration in a magnificent view of the mountains, a splendid sunset, or—to go in the direction of ugly—an alley littered with rotting garbage. Yuck. The main requirement is that you must have something of significance to say about the place. That significance might be obvious at first look. Perhaps the scene is full of color and natural beauty. Perhaps the more interesting details only come to you during the act of writing. Either way, the place is hardly worth writing about if you’re unable to offer details that make the place unique, special, or at least better than ordinary. In the place poem, place is a “character”—and sometimes the only character in the poem. You’ll need to show the reader how your particular place is different and why it’s worth knowing.

Years ago, I came across  “A Pine Tree State of Mind”—a fine example of the “place poem” by Kevin Sweeney, an English instructor at Southern Maine Community College. The poem appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of The Aurorean, a quarterly poetry journal based in Maine and ably edited by Cynthia Brackett-Vincent. (I will use excerpts rather than the whole poem.) 

Sweeney opens with

       Maine is often in love with itself
       or people in love with themselves
       talk about how much they love Maine

Golly, sounds like Texas, so far, doesn’t it? But hold on, the author continues with a description of Maine that includes

       …beautiful lakes and mountains
       the rocky coasts and ruddy faces
       of those who dwell there….

Okay, Texas definitely does not have rocky coasts. Now the author goes beyond geography to the unique character of the people of Maine:

       …it is important not to live on
       the land-locked side where the people
       call cars, trucks, furnaces, and wrenches “she.”

As one who has never set foot in Maine, I didn’t know that. I used to consider my typewriter a “she” but this laptop I’m using now is completely sexless.

       To live over there means you have committed a terrible
       sin such as sleeping late and not loving work
       so much that when you take your boat
       away from the dock in front of your house,
       you are not truly happy because you are not working…

I can see a real difference between Mainers and Carolinians. We say we are truly happy only when we are at the beach, the sun is hot, and the margaritas are frozen, though I suspect we love work as much as any New Englander.  Don’t we? Anyway, the part I like best in the poem tells us something about Maine people and their winters. In Maine,

       Even when you’re at the beach in August, winter is
       a gathered army hiding in the hills, listening to generals
       plan the great campaigns of January and February,
       the lethal skirmishes of March when the guard is down
       and the will dragging a wounded compatriot into April…

What a delight it was to read a poem about a place I have never been and to learn so much, in a very short time, about the people, geography, and culture there. Consider writing about your home, wherever that is, and the unique character of the people who inhabit your place.