Carolyn provided handouts containing five poems by some of her favorite authors, to heighten our awareness of the ingredients for good poetry and to inspire our own writing. The handout can be found on our website at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Carolyns-April-27-Handout.docx

How to Read a Poem

The first poem, “Those Winter Sundays” brought forth questions about

• punctuation and
• line endings, and
• what role is played by stanza breaks.

Carolyn said these are like “hints” or “stage directions” to help the reader know how a poem should sound. She talked about the difference between the older, academic form of poetry, where reading stopped at the end of each line. Modern poetry includes “enjambment”, where reading crosses the line-ends and even stanza breaks to make sense. A line-end should be viewed, mostly, as a half-comma pause.

When asked how she chooses her line breaks and stanza structures, Carolyn said she likes to experiment, after first writing, in order to bring out the best sense of a poem.

Looking at the second poem we were able to see a very different structure and see the visual and rhythmic clues.

How to Intensify an Image

Still in that first poem, we noted how the use of word-combinations such as “blueblack cold”, choice of adjectives such as “chronic angers”, and use of verbs such as “splintering, breaking” can intensify sensory images. Carolyn spoke often of how to INTENSIFY images and actions in poetry.

How to Title your Poem

Carolyn also emphasized the importance of titles and how these are used to invite a reader into a poem. For instance, “On the Shore of Lake Atitlan, Apparently I Ruined Breakfast,” the author sets up readers for a punch line at the end.

We all marveled at a coincidence when newcomer Renae said that she has actually been to that deep, blue crater lake in southwest Guatemala.

Writing Prompt

We took a break to write for 12 minutes from Carolyn’s prompts, inspired by the first two poems:

• write about waking up in the morning or
• a family gathering with risk or ruin.

We enjoyed another coincidence when Ron’s and Jean’s writings had the same title (differently punctuated): “Morning Again.” Newcomer Jasmine surprised us with a new interpretation of “Breakfast in Bed.” Renae’s poem focused on various shades of morning light in Portland.

How to Rhyme in Poetry

The question of rhymes came up now. Carolyn said that rhyming in poetry was an early, almost unbreakable tradition. Now rhymes must be “easily done”, not staged, and should be incorporated with punctuation, line breaks, and other techniques to avoid the poem being “sing-songy”.

How to Combine Structure and Meaning

The poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here” evokes a mystery. The poem is structured with each line almost as a separate stanza. Carolyn said she likes to see various structural possibilities like this to intensify and strengthen the meaning of each image in the poem. We noted how the central line is longer than the others, and the last reflects the first.

Mary informed us that the author of this poem, Joy Harjo, is the first Native American poet laureate. Her background sheds more light on the meaning of this poem about a kitchen table.

How to Interpret a Poem

Next was a kitchen-related poem, “Sous Chef.” Members of the group provided various interpretations for this poem as well as noticing various sensory specifics. Carolyn provided insight about how reactions to poems can be, and should be variable, according to each reader. She reminder us that individual interpretations are valid – there is no “right way” to interpret. Then she provided a metaphor, saying that the poet writes from their world but also holds up a mirror to the reader’s world where the image may be seen in a different light. Carolyn also pointed out that the Narrator in a poem is not always the poet, but the poet can be writing from another’s perspective.

More Writing Prompts

Ten minutes of writing to prompts followed:

• a family gathering around your kitchen table or other locale, or
• a chef giving orders to the sous chef.
• Another option was to begin a poem with a line from William Matthews: “Happiness begins with an onion.”

Sheila amazed us all with a beautiful, metaphorical poem about “silver moons” of onion. Mark Knudsen read his poem about a family dinner.

Narration in Poetry

The last poem, “A Blessing” has a very general title, but the lines of the poem contain specific adjectives lending a spiritual hue to the meeting of two people with two horses in twilight. The emotions are clear—love with loneliness—and unbounded joy blossoming.

A final Writing Prompt

As there was no time yet for another writing exercise, Carolyn said we could do “homework” with the next prompt:

• as with “A Blessing,” begin a poem with “Just off the highway to. . .”

New Words and New Poems

Carolyn introduced us to two new words: anaphora is the repetition of lines in a poem, such as “happiness begins. . .” in several repeating lines; sonder is the realization that all persons everywhere have as complex a life as our own. Carolyn then read from her own poem, “Sonder,” included in her newest published book, Splitting Open the World.

Carolyn left us with further insightful thoughts on poetry and life, including words from T.S. Eliot, “A poem communicates before it’s understood.” With Carolyn today we enjoyed a deeper understanding of beautifully-worded poetry.

Carolyn said she welcomes email from Writers’ Mill members at portlandpoet @ gmail.com (remove spaces), and we should feel free to ask questions, invite her comments on our responses to her writing prompts, etc.

Our thanks to Carolyn for another great session, and we can’t wait to welcome her back again next year!