Triumph of the Trivial: Creating Poems from the Smaller Details of Life (Part 2)

by Jeffrey Hillard

Bread crumbs, wallpaper, cigarette ashes, sidewalk cracks, or a bouquet of flowers? Is there something wrong with starting a poem from such seemingly trivial matter? Of course not.

In Part One of "Triumph of the Trivial", the thrust of our discussion encouraged you to look at trivial things around you as a way into writing a poem. We now expand on those thoughts and ask ourselves if, as poets, trivial details or observations can open paths into deeper themes or at least a deeper resonance.

The answer, of course, is yes; this is entirely possible. There is no detail or object too obscure to either write about or use in a poem. Often we stumble across small details every day and take them for granted. We assume they are just there. The poet must go further than just mere assumption. Those objects are ripe for poetic use.

The essence of a shoestring, bread crumbs, a doll’s dress, or dirty laundry can trigger other successive details or the chance to use innovative language and wordplay. The idea, of course, is to start small. And why not? As poet Molly Peacock says, "The poem forms from just a kernel of a thought." Let’s address this aspect of a kernel. Let us allow the kernel to lead to another kernel and yet another, paving the way for a curious poem rendered by mostly small details. Let those kernels give the previously doubtful beginning a true context and yearning.

If you can realize how many of our significant poets from Sappho to William Carlos Williams to John Ashbery have resorted to writing poems based on minute observations of everyday life, we would empower ourselves to consider a similar approach to poetry writing. One poet I know used a golf ball as a starting point for a poem. His first line expanded into lines two – five:

"I watched the golf ball snag

a limb against the lake

where my shoes, soon near it,

left imprints for frogs

to hop over…."

In this short poem, "Ditch Driving," golf becomes a metaphor for life being unpredictable – as wily as the golf ball driven off the fairway and ending up right next to a pond. This, in fact, was only the third poem this poet had attempted to write. At first, when he was struggling with an opening I asked him to write down the first image that came to mind. "A golf ball," he said. "Go with it," I said. "Start there and let the notion of a golf ball pave a path into another ‘move’ in the poem. Just trust your instinct and don’t fight the golf ball."

If you want more inspiration, think of a major American poet of the 20th century, Dr. William Carlos Williams. A practicing physician for over forty years, he often let the incidents of everyday life inform his poems. What Williams’ poems teach us is to reach for a second level of insight. In his poem, "The Right of Way," the speaker is taking a simple drive. He encounters a pedestrian later in the short poem, but here’s a few early lines:

"In passing with my mind

on nothing in the world

but the right of way

I enjoy in the road by

virtue of the law – "

Williams had a fondness for using simple subject matter and simple sentences; he broke up those sentences in odd, striking line breaks – which is called "lineation." The result is anything but sheer simplicity. The trivial "right of way" incident here will stretch out over 14 lines. The line breaks are abrupt to give the poem’s small details a real edge. The line breaks make the reader pay attention and take the details seriously.

One way for an ‘ashtray’ and ‘paintbrush’ to work in a poem would be to manipulate line breaks, giving those things emphasis. For example:

In my father’s ashtray

were heaped ashes

soft as a paintbrush

tip, a velvet soft touch.

This image takes greater shape because the lines end with vivid nouns, unusual nouns for the beginning of a poem (ashtray, ashes, paintbrush).

In his poem, "Starlings Gather, Morning," poet Kevin Bezner attends to the predictable noise starlings make outside a window in the morning. What’s striking about the poem, though, is the sense of color and emotion we feel upon reading of the speaker’s experience simply thinking about these bland birds. The poem’s tercets (3-line stanzas) help elevate this "easy" experience of listening to starlings. The tercets make it seem as if the speaker’s eyes and thought are consuming the presence of nature. Why? One sentence is cleverly stretched over 15 very short lines! Here are the first six lines:

"Confused chatter falls

from the willow oaks with

acorns,

until dozens of starlings,

stark angles in steep climb, define

the trees – …."

Bezner’s book of poems, Wherever, is filled with short poems derived from unusually common observations. The poems achieve a richness through Bezner’s determination to keep the poems’ language crisp, sharp, active, and vivid. He can take the act of reading and turn it into a poem which takes a deep spiritual meaning. Here is the ending of his poem, "Reading Lu Yu."

"…Through Lu Yu I see

how the body cannot hold us.

We overflow it every day,

and while some like Lu Yu find a new container,

even then they are not contained."

Imogene Bolls is another poet who takes the simple act of listening and treats it with poetic compassion. Her poem, "Lightning Storm," allows the reader to enter the common occurrence of – you guessed it – a lightning storm. But the real cracks of lightning signify the human self in way that suggests we humans, like the sky, can heal ourselves of "old breaks." Here is the last stanza of her poem:

"Later, sound

rumbles in

like an afterthought,

and still later

comes

the plashing

of soft rain."

As poets, we have the obligation to bring the world to the reader. As one of our great poets once said, "Poetry is news that stays news." The subject matter with which your poem dives into can be the smallest tidbit of information you discover. Try working with it. Let the kernel multiply. Turn it into language that keeps delivering the good news of poetry to our anxious minds.

-- JH
©2000 Jeff Hillard

Writer Online Associate Editor Jeffrey Hillard is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Pieces of Fernald: Poems and Images of a Place. He teaches at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio.