A version of this essay was published by Teachers and Writers Collaborative in the May-June 2003 issue of Teachers & Writers. Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein is in her third year of teaching for The Poetry Center through the Hands on Stanzas program.




ON BROKENNESS AND LEAVING:
A POET’S JUNKYARD OF POSSIBILITIES
By Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

Things fall apart, wear out, and die. People leave, change, and break. Poetry is a junker’s dream, where broken pieces find their way back together again through the needle and thread of words. Poet Mark Strand once wrote, “We all have reasons/for moving./I move/to keep things whole.” Keeping things whole has everything to do with the holiness of wholeness, has everything to do with the how and the why of the break.

What stories do we read in scars? What kind of poem breathes in that tiny crack in the vase? As a Hands on Stanzas poet-in-residence with The Poetry Center of Chicago at Columbus Elementary School, I invite young poets to tromp through the junkyards of their minds in search of all things broken. To do this I use two of my favorite poems: Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to Broken Things” and Chinese poet Bei Dao’s “Comet.”

In his “Ode to Broken Things,” Pablo Neruda makes peace with all things broken, breathes life again into objects and ideas that have lost their meaning, and does so by explaining that brokenness is as natural a state of being as wholeness. Things get broken and “[i]t’s not my hands/or yours/It wasn’t the girls/with their hard fingernails/or the motion of the planet.” This is a breaking poem where alliterative words clang with the sounds of breaking – “the clocks, plates, cups, cracked by the cold...”

Before we read this poem as a class, I ask my students to help me make a list of things that break. We include all things that fall apart, unravel, wear out, or die. Our list becomes a timeless reminder of the naturalness and familiarity of a break – all of us know something that has broken and can usually recall its significance and the sensory details related to that moment. A break often marks an irrevocable change. Does everything break? Can everything be fixed? Should everything be salvaged? Why do things break? What was life like before and after the break? Where were you when the break happened?

My fourth graders offer an endless list of things that break: friendship, a promise, glass, bones, a toy, a heart, a family, trust, and a memory – a rich combination of animate and inanimate objects and ideas. My sixth graders go to a more abstract place with this question. Before we start listing ideas some students ask, “doesn’t everything break?” Perhaps. Their list of broken things surprises me: numbers, time, love, a country, fire, laws, innocence, tree, vase, necklace, back, ribs, buildings, war.

I next ask them to consider the tools people use to fix things that get broken. Making this list encourages them to think of brokenness as an inherent part of wholeness – some things that break get fixed, others replaced, and still others, abandoned. This list usually stumps them so I give them the first idea – why do we use glue? To fix things that tear. We end up making a full and interesting list of tools used to fix things that have, for some inexplicable reason, come undone -- wire, glue, wrench, screw, masking tape, staples, hammer, nail, needle, thread, and string. Some students also offer up words like love, truth, and time.

With our junkyard tour of ideas underway, we turn to Neruda’s poem and read it by paying close attention to all things broken – line breaks, broken objects, and that which happens to broken things – “[s]o many useless things/which nobody broke/but which got broken anyway.” This poem is written in the form of an Ode, which gives a poet the chance to meditate specifically on a single idea from various viewpoints, in this case, brokenness. Neruda asks us to consider a force in the world -- “an invisible, deliberate smasher” that just seems to break things; inevitably we return to the how and the why of brokenness. My students consider a possible need for broken things – “That pot/which overflowed with scarlet/in the middle of October,/it got tired from all the violets.” Simply, it became exhausted and had to break. A sixth grader suggests that things must break to make room for all things new and whole. And therein lies the holiness of wholeness, its reliance on passing through a state of brokenness to be whole again.

All things ordinary must break -- the plate, the lamp, the flowerpot. Even an object that at one time carried so much meaning simply becomes “a broken memory, shining dust.” That clock whose sound/was/the voice of our lives/...that clock also/fell/and its delicate blue guts/vibrated/among the broken glass/its wide heart/unsprung.” And this is true for people, too. We, like, clocks, tick with significance until we expire -- our hearts unsprung. This poem is a profound lesson in dying, in the ending and beginning of things; framed as a poem about things that break, its metaphors become accessible to beginning poets just awakening to this junkyard of possibilities.

What do we do with all the things that break, including all the feelings we’ve attached to them over the years? I love Neruda’s brilliant and reasonable suggestion: “Let’s put all our treasures together/ -- the clock, plates, cups cracked by the cold -- /into a sack and carry them/to the sea/and let our possessions sink.../...May whatever breaks/be reconstructed by the sea/with the long labor of its tides.” I ask my students if they agree with Neruda. Should we pack our bags right now and go to Lake Michigan? They usually laugh and say it’s impossible. One of my fourth graders explains that you just have to let broken things be broken! Leave them in the backyard! What else would you do with all things broken? Which would you try to fix? How would you go about doing that?

There are many ways into a poem on brokenness and the sense of holiness that lies within it. The only guidelines I give them are to write about brokenness and use at least three “healing tools” we listed on the board in the poem. That means that even if they are writing about a divorced family they have to use words like “needle” or “thread.” I also encourage them to think about how they want to break their lines – the more broken, the more meaningful? Perhaps. I ask them to experiment with how a line feels whole or broken up, and what we learn from certain lines left broken.

When my students consider what they have lost in broken things, and what they might do with all things broken, they are left with profound poetic sensibility about the significance of those objects, people, or ideas they have lost in their lives. Alex, a 4th grader, followed Neruda’s model closely but came upon her own lost language in her poem. Here’s what she wrote:

Ode to Broken Things

Things get broken
outside and inside
like they were knocked down
It was not me
or you
It is not someone
that broke my heart my soul my pants
like the moon glows and my homework
broke     six     years    ago
Let me put all my treasures together
my heart, soul, pants, homework
till the moon        glows at moonlight
shine
Putting my heart together with paste
Putting my pants together with thread
Putting my homework together on paper
Putting my soul back together with a nail


Allyson, also a 4th grader, created her own sense of poetic play regarding all things broken in this poem:

Bones into Glass

I tried
to nail my secret
together with a hammer
to cover over it
but the truth –
it came out.
I was so embarrassed
I broke an egg
on my head.
My bones just
shredded into
pieces like glass.
I had to have a
cast,
They had a needle
and thread, it did not work:
My bones came out of my body
My heart broke into pieces.
My friendship broke.


Maggie, a 6th grade girl whose mother recently passed away, used this time to write about feelings surrounding the circumstances of her mother’s death:

Family

Since my mother passed away I feel lonely.
I feel heartbroken.
I wish I could grab a needle
and sew her heart
back together so it will start beating
again. I wish I could bring that time
back together and grab a rope and tie
her around my family.

I was in my room when I felt broken.
I ran to my mother, she was on
the floor like a broken flower
inside a vase. When I saw that, I
wanted to go to heaven, too.
But as long as I know I fixed my heart
by sewing it together,
my heart isn’t really broken.


Brenda, another 6th grader, reflected on the death of her grandfather in her poem:

Broken

Broken like my heart.
My memories. bikes.
Skateboards.
Fixed by tools,
Time. tape. sewing.
I wish I could sew
my heart together,
my memory,
I wish I could just
bring back the days before
my grandfather’s passing.

I was in my room
when my uncle came
and said to my mom, “dad died.”
That’s when my heart broke
in pieces, when I wished I could
sew it back together, but it
was no use. The person I love died.
All I could do is cry
and wonder why, why
so soon, I cried, cried about
the time we had fun together,
the time he told me about
the past.

I wish I could go back
and take all broken things
put them in a bag,
climb the tallest sky scraper
and drop it on a cloud.

In every poem, students explored the metaphor and meaning of loss through poetic images that served to bring wholeness to a broken situation. In addressing brokenness, students themselves come closer to keeping things whole.

Poet Bei Dao also tromps through the junkyard of his mind, though not in search of things that have broken but of thoughts and feelings about people who leave. Like a coruscating comet flying fleetingly through the night sky, people, too, sometimes leave us fleetingly, beautifully, and without explanation. It is our nature, though, to ground our loss in explanations. Death seized them, a life change forced them to leave, or the shape of the relationship transformed -- love into hate, trust into distrust, compassion into revenge. How do we speak and write about loss without trailing the same path of sadness and regret? Dao’s poem allows us to imagine a voice that speaks directly to Loss itself.

In an assertive first line, Dao demands, “Come back or leave forever/don’t stand like that at the door/like a statue made of stone,” as if commanding Loss itself to decide above all else. The whole first stanza is devoted to a single voice that “stands up” to a person who leans in the doorframe, unable to decide whether to stay or leave. After all, it is not the actual act of leaving that will be painful, but what happens in the moments after that person has left – how then we take stock of our situation and the ways in which our lives might change. He explains, “in fact, what is hard to imagine/is not darkness but dawn.” It is not our “darkness” that is so difficult; it is our waiting for the light.

When people leave us, or when we leave others, it is not necessarily devastating. At times, leaving can be a powerful choice, a choice that hints at something better, freer, more enlightened. In someone’s absence, we learn to fill in that empty space with a more grounded version of ourselves. And even if that person’s absence devastates, there is a lot of potential for growth. How do I converse with fourth graders about loss and leaving? How do I explain this strange space between darkness and light? I especially do not want them to feel that they have to write a sad poem.

I turn to a whole new set of lists. I ask my fourth graders to help me create a list of Things That Leave. Their hands fly into the air with suggestions. Snow. Rain. Sunshine. Leaves. Grandparents. Hours. Minutes. Days. Children. Parents. Twin Towers. Money. Teeth. Hair. Feelings. Boyfriends. Girlfriends. Memories. Sisters. Brothers. The list goes on as they begin to narrow in on the world through the lens of leaving. We include ourselves in this list because we, too, have left others, other cities, other countries, other states, times, and experiences.

“Comet” remains unread until we have made two more lists: Things That Return, and finally, Things That Leave Forever. This last list becomes difficult for some, and spiritual for others. It is also surprisingly short, as many of them conclude (on their own!) that nothing can really leave us forever because even people who have died can come back as grass or trees. This astounds me – without coaching for any kind of conversation on spirituality, some students naturally gravitate toward this organic vision of life.

Nestled in the rich, tangled junkyard of these ideas, we read the poem out loud as a class and pay close attention to the form, content, and language. Three stanzas in this poem make the idea of leaving feel cyclical and whole. Dao begins and ends the poem in a hauntingly repetitive manner, “come back.../...or leave forever,” which makes us question the poet’s relationship with the person leaving. Does he really want that person to return? Does he indeed want that person to leave forever? What is the best decision to make here? Clearly, someone has to decide, and a great deal of tension rests in the crux of all this confusion.

The metaphorical binding can be found in the poem’s title – Comet. I ask my students to think about the nature of a comet. Many fourth graders first study the solar system at that age and are quite adept at making scientific inferences in poetry. We pursue the comet connection for a while, drawing on ideas that offer complexity and contrast. Like a comet, people are unpredictable; they dazzle us as mysteries, and just as quickly burn out past the backdrop of a night sky.

The contrasting images in Dao’s poem help shape our feelings on the complexities of loss. We begin to recognize that loss is not black or white, happy or sad, but rather something deeply rooted in the ebb and flow of life. I ask my students to go on a hunt for ideas, senses, or images that seem like opposites. Three distinctly contrasting ideas arise – the first is his demand to come back and leave forever at the same time. The other two contrasting ideas are found in the second and third stanzas. He plays with the paradox of feeling more at ease with the darkness of loss than with the dawn that follows. Dao uses the contrasting language of heat and cold to further push the complexities of this tension and indecision. At the end of the second stanza, he questions whether the trailing debris of the comet will “burn up and turn into ash.” And in the next and final stanza he commands, “leave forever/like a comet/sparkling and cold like frost.”

I ask my students to think hard about the people and things that have left them. I encourage them to wonder what life would be like if they returned, and what would have to change if they came back. What would be the terms and conditions of the return? What would life be like if that object or person decided to take the word “forever” seriously?

To begin their poem, I encourage the fourth graders to borrow Dao’s haunting invitation to “come back or leave forever.” I tell my students to speak directly to that which has left or threatens to leave – to say exactly what it might mean to them and what they might do in the moments after that person or object leaves. After so much time spent discussing loss, they are experts at identifying those people or things most important to them and what it might mean if they left their worlds. Following Dao’s lead, their poems feel haunting, tense, direct, and a bit playful too.


Here’s a poem by a fourth grader who speaks directly to her heart. It addresses a fear of death and a yearning to live:

Heart

Come back or leave forever
Come back heart or leave
Don’t beat there like a rock
If you leave I will die.
If you got to another person
You won’t see me again.


Another student, Alexa, decided to focus on two objects that seem to leave quite often and return – money and fall leaves. I really enjoyed the double meaning of “Leaves” in her poem:

Things that Leave

Leaves, oh my god
I can’t believe the leaves are green
and flying high in the sky -- they
came back and left
forever.


Sandi, a fellow fourth grader, also decided to choose several ideas and address each of them one by one. She, like Dao, decides to “negotiate” with each idea:

Come on heart, or leave me
For ever because you keep
me alive forever until
I die.

And you spring

you left me forever until

you changed.

You – bad dreams
come back at night or leave forever
with those mean dreams.

These fourth graders continued to navigate their losses with fresh, imaginative, direct language that challenged boundaries and seemed to make peace with loss itself. A boy named Zev has an honest conversation with his dog:

Come back or leave forever Barky.
You can decide, leave or come back.
Okay, you decide, fly out like a bird in the
sky that has to hunt for his own
food, has to hunt cats,
or come back with me
and I will give you food.


Jeana has a frantic conversation with her brain in a poem called My Brain, Come Back or Leave Me Forever. She pleads, “Come back or leave forever/school is starting brain one more day until/school I need you brain how am I going/to think I need to think come back/or leave forever you are doing this/on purpose you know I’m having a

math test!” And Alberto, a recent emigrant from Mexico, uses this time to call back his native country. He writes:

I born in Mexico. I lived at my Aunt’s house.
I was in Mexico forever. We come to United States.

Come Back Mexico

Because my Aunt wants that I go back to Mexico.

Come Back Mexico

Because I miss my animals and helping my Uncle.

Come Back Dog

Because I love him, he always take care of me
When I am in danger forest.

As poets, this universal junkyard of loss and brokenness becomes an immense landscape of hope and possibility; as we traverse it, we begin to discern that which is worth saving, and that which is better left abandoned and recycled by the organics of forgetting. Both Pablo Neruda and Bei Dao, poets from opposite ends of the world with very different poetic styles, invite all the world’s poets to meet in this universal junkyard of soul. In “Comet,” I believe Dao describes this place as a “white corridor connecting two evenings/in the valley where echoes arise on all sides.” It is there, he says, where “you sing alone,” yet through poetry, each of us sings there alone together. Here, each of us can dig through the past, pick at the present, and reuse what is found to build a poetic and meaningful future. It is in this junkyard of possibility where the lost becomes found, the brokenness, whole again, and in that we find the holiness of all things lost and broken.

Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein writes poetry and creative nonfiction. The winner of numerous awards and prizes, her work appears in national and local literary journals including Another Chicago Magazine and Primavera. This is her 2nd year as a poet-in-residence at Columbus Elementary School in partnership with The Poetry Center of Chicago’s Hands on Stanzas literary outreach program.

Bibliography

Dao, Bei. “Comet,” The August Sleepwalker.New York: 1990.
Neruda, Pablo. “Ode to Broken Things,” Fifty Odes. New York: 1987.

*Fourth and sixth grade students at Columbus Elementary School in Chicago, IL wrote all the poetry in this essay during the 2002-2003 school year. All their names have been changed.