Greetings, writers—
Tell me what you saw this morning in two lines.
The poet Marie Howe gives this assignment to her students, and I think it’s a great one.
For one thing, it demands a routine writing practice: each day, observe the world and write (briefly) about something you saw. For another, it’s harder than it sounds, because Howe forbids metaphors, similes, abstractions, and interpretations. No to the way the August light slanted across the grass reminded me of the afternoon my dog ran away. Yes to “I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places.” You’re just supposed to look at the thing, and sit with it for a moment, and then do your best to describe it as its small, unimportant self.
Howe notes that it takes awhile before her students’ sentences really come alive. But they always do (“It’s so thrilling,” she says), because by that point everyone’s spent weeks carefully observing what’s right in front of them. When Howe finally encourages her students to use metaphor, they don’t even want to. She says, “They’re like, “Why would I? Why would I compare that to anything when it’s itself?”
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