Narrating A Childhood Memory
1. Locate a memory (hopefully a poignant one, a neglected one) and depict the scene around it.
2. Try to specify the exact time and location of the memory. Establish/provide this context as briefly as possible.
3. Locate yourself within the scene, fill in the details (from the child's perspective?).
4. Try to give the reader the impression that you, the author, are remembering, in exact detail, the memory you are relating. Your poem may begin in the past and stay there. You may then begin in the present and turn to the past. You may begin in the present, turn to the past, and then come back to the present.
5. Think about what triggers the memory, about what's at stake in the experience, about what's lost (and found) in the writing of the poem
This assignment is worth 1 point.
Examples:
1. In The Waiting Room—Elizabeth Bishop
3. On Turning Ten—Billy Collins