This assignment is to choose a thing or a person or some entity for close and detailed observation. However, this is more than just a closely detailed poem. This poem should somehow stretch itself beyond the object, either by considering one’s own history or memory (as Grennan does when he says “I remember an Indian file of cows in mist…” in “Cows”) or putting the object in an historical context (as Ruth Fainlight does in “Flower Feet” or as is done so extensively and wonderfully in “Shirt”) or letting the poem stretch itself into imaginative dimensions beyond the object (as Eric Ormsby does in “Conch Shell”).

This poem by its very nature will probably be long. Give whatever you choose to describe your closest attention. Describe it using all your senses. There should be no question whatsoever in the reader’s mind what this poem is describing. The reader should feel as if s/he is holding, smelling, seeing the person or the thing right along beside you. Don’t be afraid to overdo it; you can cut back in revision.

This exercise was taken from course materials prepared by Judy Jordan,
Southern Illinois University