Advanced Poetry/Fiction workshop: W. S. Merwin/The "Break up Poem"

AGENDA:
Vote for Creative Writing officers!

1. Read W. S. Merwin's "The Nails" and the reading guide

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69462/ws-merwin-the-nails

Explore writing ideas about a "break up' poem and discussion guide:

Answer discussion questions and post on blog. Work on one of the two writing ideas.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52501/the-nails#tab-resources

“The Nails” plays on common, idiomatic expressions—“wearing your heart on your sleeve” becomes “I wear a torn place on my sleeve,” for example. Make a list of common expressions. Like Merwin, swap out words and images. Try building a poem from your converted clichés.

Examples of cliches:

Merwin’s speaker discards his own attempts to name and describe grief through the almost-refrain, “It isn’t as simple as that.” Think of a situation that seems to defy your own attempt to understand it—it could be personal, like this poem’s break-up, or much more public. Using Merwin’s phrase only twice, write a poem that likewise tries to articulate complexity and acknowledge the difficulty of explaining “it.”

Jeffrey McDaniel notes in his poem guide to “The Nails” that, “what make the poem special is the intensity of feeling coupled with the startling imagery.” Make a list of all the images this poem contains; then, try to assign a mood to each image. How does Merwin mood through images and vice versa?
Try to sonically graph the poem: as you read it aloud, connect or otherwise indicate matching or nearly matching sounds. Do you detect any patterns similar to the Oh-I-Oh-I-Oh structure McDaniel describes?
In what ways does this poem seem to chart the emotional aftermath of a relationship? In what way does its subject—“the other thing”—also remain mysterious? Can you examine moments where the logic, emotion, or images “leap” in the poem?
While “The Nails” refers to the startling final image, how else does the poem imagine or create an uncomfortable sense of connection? What other senses of “nailing” or bonding are at work?

Have students assemble a mini-anthology of Poems About Heartbreak. Feel free to assign guidelines, such as having poems from a variety of historical periods, countries, and “schools” or moments in poetry. Students can explore library holdings or one of the Love categories on the Poetry Foundation. If “The Nails” is the starting poem for each mini-anthology, ask students to arrange their own selections (10-15 additional poems) in an order that makes sense to them. Then have students each write an introduction explaining their selections and ordering choices.
McDaniel notes the influence that Spanish language poets such as Federico García Lorca, Roberto Juarroz, Pablo Neruda, and Jean Follain have had on Merwin. Have your students research the poems of these other poets. What lines of influence can they draw between the techniques and styles of these poets and Merwin? If your students speak or read Spanish (or even if they don’t!), have them translate a poem or two from these poets. Lead a discussion on the challenges students faced in doing their own translation, perhaps drawing on “Various Tongues,” a conversation between Ilya Kaminsky and Adam Kirsch on translation.

Advanced Poetry/Fiction workshop