âI want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And itâs thrilling. Weâre all enlivened by it. We donât have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water.â
â Marie Howe, Boston Universityâs 2016 Theopoetics Conference (via mothersofmyheart)
Marie Howe:
I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. Itâs very hard for them.
Ms. Tippett:
Really?
Ms. Howe:
They really find it hard.
Ms. Tippett:
What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?
Ms. Howe:
Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.
Ms. Tippett:
It does.
Ms. Howe:
It hurts us.
Ms. Tippett:
You naming something.
Ms. Howe:
We want to say, âIt was like this; it was like that.â We want to look away. And to be with a glass of water or to be with anything â and then they say, âWell, thereâs nothing important enough.â And thatâs whole thing. Itâs the point.
Ms. Howe:
Itâs the this, right?
Ms. Howe:
Right, the this, whatever. And then they say, âOh, I saw a lot of people who really wantâ â and, âNo, no, no. No abstractions, no interpretations.â But then this amazing thing happens, Krista. The fourth week or so, they come in and clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff. And it so thrilling. I mean, it is thrilling. Everybody can feel it. Everyone is just like, âWow.â The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, and the maple tree outside, and the blue jay. I mean, it almost comes clanking into the room. And itâs just amazing.
Ms. Tippett:
In some basic level, what theyâve done is just engage with their senses.
Ms. Howe:
Yeah, and have been present out of their minds and just noticing whatâs around them, which is â we donât do. And again, not to compare it to anything. Theyâre not allowed. And thatâs very hard for them. And then on the fifth or sixth week, I say, âOK, use metaphors.â And they donât want to. They donât know how. Theyâre like, âWhy would I? Why would I compare that to anything when itâs itself?â Exactly. Good question.
So then you think, why the necessity of a metaphor? Why do you have to use a metaphor now? Not just to do it to avoid it, but to do it to make it more there. And itâs very interesting.
The words and silences we live by. The rituals that sustain us. The poetry of ordinary time.
