Choose some object or entity for close observation: a stone, a fungus, a wristwatch, an onion, a frog, a pine cone, a leaf, a hummingbird, etc. Or choose an action as in Roethke's "Transplanting," or "Moss-Gathering" or a person as in Roethke's "Old Florist," or "Weed Puller," or an animal as in Bishop's "The Fish" or Shapiro's "The Fly."

Just be sure when describing a person or an animal that you are not overly sentimental. You will also be well advised to realize that Shapiro is being humorous by writing an apostrophe (an address to any imaginary object, abstract idea, personified thing, or person who is absent) to a fly, veering between humor and seriousness with discrepancy and subtlety that works well, but could have ended up simply sounding ludicrous.

Whatever you choose, give it your closest attention. Make notes on it. Describe it as best you can using all your senses. After you have made enough specific, concrete images to form a solid foundation, generalize from the things you observe to some meaning drawn from your observations. For example, describe a rock in great detail, then make a generalization about life, or time, or the human condition based on that description. Don't be afraid to overdo it; you can cut back in revision. "On a Maine Beach" and "Moss-Gathering" are both excellent examples of large meanings drawn from observation of seemingly small things or actions.

An excellent example of a close description with which most of you will be familiar is D.H. Lawrence's SNAKE. While Lawrence describes the snake using familiar language and familiar imagery, he also makes us see the snake in a totally new way: "He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, / And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, / And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, / And stopped and drank a little more / .... He drank enough / And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, / And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, / Seeming to lick his lips, / And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, / And slowly turned his head, / And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, / Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round / And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face."

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