Check List

This week’s poem looks nothing like any the students at Volta have seen so far. “Living in Numbers” by Claire Lee is a list of seemingly unrelated (or even random) items recorded over two consecutive days. Its language is plain and informational, though the poet does include a simile (“Number of times I’ve woken up after oversleeping and sprung out of bed like a ninja”) and hyperbole (“Number of times I’ve wanted to bawl my eyes out,” “Number of times I’ve laughed so hard my sides would bruise”). We talked about the differences in totals, pluses as well as minuses, and wondered how those numbers could change in just a single day? Also, if any of the items could explain those changes? For such a seemingly straightforward poem, there’s actually a lot of possibilities to be explored, things that reveal the speaker’s personality without saying anything directly.

I told the class this was an example of a list poem and that they would write their own. As one essay defines the form, “It’s not enough for things to just be listed. They must have a relation to each other, tell a story or offer commentary.”