Podcast: Script Draft
Introduction: Hi Everyone! Thanks so much for tuning in. You’re listening to In-Form, the podcast where we talk about poetry, and all the basics of poetic form. I’m your host, Isabella SIlvestre, and in today’s episode we’re going to be diving into a very recognizable form of poetry, List poems.
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Personally, I am someone who makes lists all the time. To-do lists, checklists, daily schedules, it’s just something that helps me feel more organized in life. So, when it comes to poetry, it is no wonder that I enjoy reading list poems.
List poems are poems in the form of a catalog or inventory. The use of free verse is triumphant when writing a list poem, and there is no specific line pattern nor meter that an author must adhere to. This makes it a very flexible form of poetry, so many authors find it fun to work with.
You may remember reading or writing list poems in elementary school. They’re a great way to introduce children to poetry because of the form itself. The only real rule when it comes to writing a list poem is pretty self explanatory, there has to be a list! It could be a list of single words or sentences, but what is necessary is that most of the lines must have a consistent and repeated structure that follows a sequence of items, questions, or ideas.
When doing research for this podcast and trying to find list poems to share with you all, many of the google results that came up were list poems used in children’s books. This made it a little difficult to find poems that had substantial context to analyze.
But, here is a lighthearted list poem by Shel Silverstein that I think is a good example of the simplicity of the list poem form:
“Eighteen Flavors,” Shel Silverstein
Eighteen luscious, scrumptious flavors
Chocolate, lime and cherry,
Coffee, pumpkin, fudge banana
Caramel cream and boysenberry.
Rocky road and toasted almond,
Butterscotch, vanilla dip,
Butter brickle, apple ripple,
Coconut and mocha chip,
Brandy peach and lemon custard,
Each scoop lovely, smooth and round,
Tallest ice cream cone in town, Lying there (sniff) on the ground.
A fun, yet tragic story.
*pause*
But not all list poems are as simple as listing ice cream flavors. One of the most famous American poems, Song of Myself, written by Walt Whitman is a more complex list poem that mentions the joys and wonders of experiencing nature. Whitman used diversity as a structural principle in his lists, and he wrote long, loose lines that had parallel constructions.
This diversity that I speak of comes from the structure of the list poem. The lines must be *structurally* repetitive or consistent, but no lines have to be the same. Also, list poems use a topic and idea structure: the ideas are what the author is listing about the topic. But every line and idea can relate to the topic in a different way, allowing for multiple interpretations.
Now, this is where list poems get a little bit more complicated:
The structure of a list poem ALSO reinforces a governing idea of equality.
I know what you must be thinking, “Well, how can a form be structurally diverse while still exhibiting equality? Isn’t that a little contradicting?”
Allow me to explain.
In a list poem, the author is naming a bunch of things that relate to their chosen topic. Each of these things or ideas are LISTED, and within this form that means that they each have their own line. They may be about different things, but no line is more important than another, meaning that each item on the list is equal.
David Lehman, author of the chapter on list poems found in the book “An Exaltation of Forms”, explains this point well by using an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” that I will share with you all now.
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,
The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open’d lips,
The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,
The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)
The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries,
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,
The form itself makes it so that the president is no better than the opium eater, and the prostitute is equal to the bride. To conclude this point; In a list poem, all items on the list are created equal, even though they may emphasize different aspects.
In-Form will return shortly after the break.
<<20/30 second break>>
Welcome back everyone!
So… continuing on our tour of the list poem form, I want to take a look at a poem by George Ella Lyon, published in 1999.
Where I’m From
By George Ella Lyon
I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm
whose long gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.
I am from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down.
I’m from He restoreth my soul
with cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.
I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures.
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments —
snapped before I budded —
leaf-fall from the family tree.
(more analysis of the poem)
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That’s it for today guys, I hope you enjoyed learning all about list poems(). I want to thank my Linguistics Architecture teacher, Profesor Belflower for assigning my class this podcast project. It was a great learning experience and I had a lot of fun recording this radio show for you guys. Thanks for listening to In-Form, and make sure to tune in next time to learn about more poetic forms.
