One of my creative writing professors gave the assignment to write poetry from art. It’s possible she was trying to introduce us to ekphrastic poetry, which, according to the Lantern Review Blog, is “written in conversation with a work(s) of visual art.”

But she took a less formal approach, closer to what the Currier Museum of Art has been inviting people to each month with their Art Inspires Art prompt and Tweetspeak Poetry has done with Image-ine Poetry: Find some art, study it carefully, write a poem.

For my class assignment, I used a small, framed print of an Andrew Wyeth painting as inspiration. I studied the boy sitting in the grass and imagined a possible scenario leading up to the moment Wyeth captured. As I was finishing the poem and typing it up, I realized I needed to include information about Wyeth’s work. I turned the frame around and only then, after titling my poem, did I learn the name of the painting: “Faraway” (image can be seen at the bottom of this page).

Runaway

(Andrew Wyeth, “Faraway,” 1952)

The boy rocks a depression
into the grasses of the unused pasture,
and as he latches his knees against his chest,
he twirls with his left hand the tail of his raccoon hat
his uncle gave him two weeks ago
after Thanksgiving dinner.

A couple miles away
his mother stands next to the porcelain sink
wiping yellow-flowered plates with a calendar dishcloth,
and listens to the Action Five News
while in the den his father props up his slippered feet
on the pine coffee table.

Uncle Jack will soon be in sight
and the boy will hear him tapping the horn of his truck
and leaning out the window to call his name.
Soon they will sit at a booth at the Clayton Cafe,
sip at their hot chocolate,
and talk the psychology of love, forgiveness,
and the Dodgers’ last home game.

©1988 Ann Kroeker

Those were the days of long sentences. I tweaked it for 2015.

Runaway

(Andrew Wyeth, “Faraway,” 1952)

The boy rocks a depression
into the grasses of the unused pasture.
Knees latched against his chest,
he twirls the tail of the raccoon hat
his uncle gave him two weeks ago
after Thanksgiving dinner.

A couple miles away
his mother stands next to the porcelain sink
wiping yellow-flowered plates with a calendar dishcloth.
In the den, his father props his slippered feet
on the pine coffee table
and watches the Action Five News.

Soon Uncle Jack will tap the horn of his truck
and lean out the window to call the boy’s name.
They will sit at a booth at the Clayton Cafe,
sip hot chocolate,
and talk the psychology of love, forgiveness,
and the Dodgers’ last home game.

©1988, 2015 Ann Kroeker

When you need a creative boost, write poetry from art. Or for that matter, let art inspire not only poems but also short stories, essays, blog posts, or books.

The post Write Poetry from Art: Runaway (Andrew Wyeth, “Faraway,” 1952) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Until 2001, my mom thought our genealogy traced to England and Germany, but that year she and her brother discovered to their surprise that the ancestors they presumed were English actually came from Scotland.

After tracing our family name to Kirkcudbright, where Robert Burns visited the Selkirk Inn and offered the famous “Selkirk Grace” (offered at the beginning of Burns Suppers), Mom began to refer to him as “Bobbie” Burns. Aye, once we knew we were Scottish, we felt a level of familiarity with Scotland’s national poet.

That year, Mom and her brother flew to Scotland and traipsed the countryside visiting cemeteries, museums, castles and libraries in search of more clues. Before long, they met distant relatives who called them “cousins” and welcomed them into their homes, shared stories, invited them to dinner and served them cookies.

While sitting behind a small church by the Kirkcudbright harbor, surrounded by “a host of golden daffodils,” Mom wrote in her journal, “Are we drawn to this place because our roots are here? Or because it is so charming?” And my uncle felt such a draw to Scotland after that first trip, he returned many times over the years, staying for weeks at a time. He became such a regular, the locals greeted him by name when he stepped into the pub for a drink.

I’ve never been there myself, so I’ve had to find and form my connection to Scotland in other ways. The photos and stories my mom and uncle share provide a starting point, of course, but I’ve seen again and again how poetry crosses time and space to link heart and mind and place to person, so I recently perused the Scottish Poetry Library’s list of poets, in search of some links. The collection reminded me how many classic poets come from Scotland, such as Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Robert Louis Stevenson, George MacDonald, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Scotland came to me on Poetry at Work Day, via Twitter, when the Scottish Parliament shared a poem by Edwin Morgan, written for opening of the Scottish Parliament building in 2004. And the Young Reporters for the Environment introduced me to several more contemporary Scottish poets, such as Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley Maclean, and Iain Crichton Smith.

One of those mentioned, Norman MacCaig, offers a poetic glimpse of Scotland in his poem, “Assynt and Edinburgh”:

Assynt and Edinburgh

From the corner of Scotland I know so well
I see Edinburgh sprawling like seven cats
on its seven hills beside the Firth of Forth.

And when I’m in Edinburgh I walk
amongst the mountains and lochs of that corner
that looks across the Minch to the Hebrides.

Two places I belong to as though I was born
in both of them.

They make every day a birthday,
giving me gifts wrapped in the ribbons of memory.
I store them away, greedy as a miser.

Robert Louis Stevenson penned this poem far from his homeland, remembering the land of his birth:

To S. R. Crockett (On receiving a Dedication)

Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying,

Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,

Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,

My heart remembers how!

Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,

Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,

Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,

And winds, austere and pure:

Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,

Hills of home! and to hear again the call;

Hear about the graves of the martyrs the peewees crying,

And hear no more at all.

But “Bobbie” Burns is the one I feel I must attend to, and I’m sorry I missed the Burns Supper hosted by our local Scottish Society here in the States to commemorate Burns Night, January 25. I’m reminded Burns penned the poem we sing on New Year’s Eve, Auld Lang Syne and the classic poem “A Red, Red Rose”:

A Red, Red Rose

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair are thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

Lingering on the lochs and moors of Scotland, if only through verse, I sense the love of the land and language, the pride in the people and poets. Then I stumble on this brief poem from George MacDonald, and I hear the words all the way from Scotland, across time and space, linking poet and place to person.

The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs

Come
Home.

* * *

Originally published at Tweetspeak Poetry; published here under a Creative Commons license. Photo by Moyan_Brenn, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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Field Hands

My father asks me why I’m so dirty.
I say it’s because I played in the field with Becky.
I won’t tell him I worked from two until suppertime
helping pick potatoes with the Hammons in their field.

I won’t tell him how warm and rich the earth was
when Mr. Hammons plowed through, leaving dry ripples
for us to dig our hands in to fish for potatoes.
Or how we picked up six-inch worms and threw them at each other,
while tossing potatoes into ratty bushel baskets.

I like going home with limp hair,
stringy from the summer wind,
and a film of dust on my arms and legs.
When my mom asks me to wash the dishes,
I’ll say I’m too tired.

© 1992 Ann Kroeker

(As my friend Nancy Franson embarks on a Tweetspeak poetry dare, I am sharing this poem originally penned in 1987 or 1988, then modified slightly in 1992.)

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