Last year around this time (Halloween), the poet who came to work with my classes assigned us to write I Come From poems from the point of view of one of Halloween’s typical bad guys, or some other monster, creature, beastie, or evil-embodied being of our choice.
Knowing the popularity of things like Wicked (from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz) and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (the Big Bad Wolf’s version), it’s obvious that people like to imagine the other side of the story.
Being an English teacher, and having studied British literature in college, I decided that I would try writing Grendel’s poem. Grendel is the primary monster in the epic tale of Beowulf. I have covered Beowulf in classes I’ve taught, and I’ve also had students read a book called Grendel, by John Gardner, which is a partial telling of the epic from the monster’s point of view. That book influenced my poem quite a bit.
There are all sorts of ways to structure identity poems, they don’t have to be done with the ‘I Come From’ style, but it can help when you’re getting started. Anyone else have a Halloween poem to share?
Here’s the poem I wrote last year:
Grendel
When I arrive in your town, you see only a monstrosity.
LOOK
SEE
I am more!
I am from the cold, unloving stone walls that birthed me,
from the hard-packed, earthen floor,
a stone cradle never able to rock me to sleep.
I come from the warmth of my mother’s body
the scent of her fur
moistened by my tears
the tears of a spirit starved for affections, connections.
I come from a shattered heart and hollow hopes
from the realization that there are no others of my kind.
My wakening Awareness met only by instinctual animal responses.
I come from loneliness so dark
the brightest sun is lost within it.
I stroll through moors and swamps,
seeking even the minutest hints of recognition
hungering for fellowship, brotherhood, understanding.
Strange and evil creatures seek cover at my approach.
There is no kinship for me even there.
I wander the shadowy forrests,
journey far afield.
I forage, not for food, but for something else to feed me, to fill me.
Crossing paths with Night Creatures
I hear their vicious snarls.
All sensible animals have long since taken flight, found shelter.
I come from a kinship with these predators,
a kinship of misconstrued confusions,
the disconnectedness of the pariah,
driven by primal instincts directing us only toward prey and procreation.
But this night,
Hwaet!
This night there is some strangeness upon the air.
Distinctive smells and a distant din.
Instinct, or curiosity, draws me.
Within my cells something resonates,
creates a harmony to these vibrations and intonations.
It can’t be,
yet I know that I am from these beings.
Listening intently,
meanings echo themselves into clarity
evolving, solving riddles in my mind.
Hrothgar, I have come home!
10-29-2010 Poetry workshop with Danny Solis
Filed under: From the Bard--Ms. Julie Hasted, Monday Miscellaneous
