In my blog post, “Write with Strong, Specific Nouns,” you read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s description of a junkyard, which he wrote by listing nouns in fragments. Not only do fiction writers use strong specific nouns, so do poets. In fact, poets have a poetic form called the list poem.
The list poem is one of the oldest forms of poetry. Also known as the catalog poem, it consists primarily of strong, specific nouns. It’s not a random list of nouns, however; rather it’s a well-crafted, inventory about a particular topic.
It involves sequencing the nouns. Poets position the nouns beside each other to make a connection between them or to create musicality through alliteration or assonance. A list poem that meets literary standards creates a rhythm in structure and content. Then it interrupts that pattern with a noun and description (sometimes a simile or metaphor), which causes the reader to resonate with it.
One of my favorite list poems is “A Farm Picture” by Walt Whitman:
A Farm Picture
by Walt Whitman
Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding;
And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.
In this short, three-line poem, there are eight nouns—one leads to the next until the reader steps momentarily into the farm scene with Whitman. Using nouns, Whitman created a word picture, a snapshot of life in the country.
List poems can also have a twist in them like the last lines of “The Grocer’s Children” by Herbert Scott:
The Grocer’s Children
by Herbert Scott
The grocer’s children
eat day-old bread
moldy cakes and cheese,
soft black bananas
on stale shredded wheat,
weeviled rice, their plates
heaped high with wilted
greens, bruised fruit
surprise treats
from unlabeled cans,
tainted meat.
The grocer’s children
never go hungry.
What about you? Do you have a favorite list poem? If you wrote a list poem today, what would the title be? What nouns would you include? What connections would you make?
Works Cited
Herbert, Scott. “The Grocer’s Children,” Groceries: Poems. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg Press, 1976. Print.
Whitman, Walt. “A Farm Picture.” The Complete Poems. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
This is a really fascinating post! To be honest, I never thought of the category of list poem before, and it’s an intriguing and very helpful way to think of some poems or even parts of poems. I remember years and years ago that a professor pointed out to a class I was in that the description of one character in a poem we had really was essentially an ongoing list, a list that the poet eventually ended but that had the potential (so it seemed) to be infinite. This was a love-description in which there was just no end to the complimentary things it would be possible to write about the beloved! :>)
I’m trying to think of what I’d write a list poem about if I were a poet. Maybe all the good things about Christmas? I love this holiday! Or – I don’t know, but it’s interesting just to think of what *would* inspire a good list.
Thanks for another thought-provoking insight, Linda! And best wishes for your well-deserved holiday break!
Nice post. I learned something new today.