I am excited to be back for my third year of Go Poems, this year with Christian Wiman's “After the Diagnosis." Here's how I approach this piece from three different angles: the poet, the poem, and the readers in front of me . . . or "you."
THE POET:
A Christian returned to the faith—with poetry and prose about faith: He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art and My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.
A form-al poet—deliberate and subtle with respect to rhyme, to rhythm.
A sufferer—Wiman has a rare and unpredictable blood cancer, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, for which there is no known cure.
THE POEM:
Repetition: This poem is driven by a two “No remembering” statements and one “No telling” sentence. What was it like to wait for the “No remembering” statement to resolve?
Creation: This poem calls us to look up and down. What sense does the speaker make of the near-destruction of the tree?
Craft: Wiman tantalizes the reader with subtle allusions and images, and with irregular yet frequent end-rhymes. Choose one of Wiman’s poetic craft choices and describe the pay-off of that choice.
YOU:
Few of us think of ourselves as poets. But we all can make meaning in our lives, even if that meaning is not always joyful or clear. Consider which of these writing prompts is the easiest gateway to knowing yourself & loving yourself, to knowing others & understanding—if not loving—others, and then respond to it.
Re-vision: What’s a feature of your landscape that has changed recently? A shopping center out of business, a remodeled room in your school, a tree newly budding, whatever. What change, what challenge, what loss is the at the “heart of things” before your very eyes, if you’re only patient enough to look?
Survival: What’s a feature of your landscape or yourself that has endured something difficult? A classmate, an embattled team, your own sense of hope, whatever.
Sound: Work the ear as Wiman does. Perhaps there’s a repetition, a subtle rhyme you can weave into some of the lines.
For future reading, look at:
this interview with Wiman on faith & cancer
this review of his memoir My Bright Abyss
this personal essay in which Wiman describes getting his diagnosis
Creation: This poem calls us to look up and down. What sense does the speaker make of the near-destruction of the tree?
Craft: Wiman tantalizes the reader with subtle allusions and images, and with irregular yet frequent end-rhymes. Choose one of Wiman’s poetic craft choices and describe the pay-off of that choice.
YOU:
Few of us think of ourselves as poets. But we all can make meaning in our lives, even if that meaning is not always joyful or clear. Consider which of these writing prompts is the easiest gateway to knowing yourself & loving yourself, to knowing others & understanding—if not loving—others, and then respond to it.
Re-vision: What’s a feature of your landscape that has changed recently? A shopping center out of business, a remodeled room in your school, a tree newly budding, whatever. What change, what challenge, what loss is the at the “heart of things” before your very eyes, if you’re only patient enough to look?
Survival: What’s a feature of your landscape or yourself that has endured something difficult? A classmate, an embattled team, your own sense of hope, whatever.
Sound: Work the ear as Wiman does. Perhaps there’s a repetition, a subtle rhyme you can weave into some of the lines.
For future reading, look at:
this interview with Wiman on faith & cancer
this review of his memoir My Bright Abyss
this personal essay in which Wiman describes getting his diagnosis
Further Reading:
Joel Garza is Upper School chair of the English department at Greenhill School. Here’s what he’s reading these days.
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