Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poetry Classroom: Directions

By L.L. Barkat 6 Comments

Welcome to this month’s poetry classroom, with poet Daniel Bowman, author of A Plum Tree in Leatherstocking Country. We invite you to respond to the poems we’ll share here—their forms, images, sounds, meanings, surprises—ask questions of Dan and each other, and write your own poems along the way.



Directions

Head right through the toothed wheel,
through going home,
through can’t go home again,

out toward the scarred fir
and the leaning poplar.
At the bridge you’ll hear
your uncle laugh as he deflects
an onslaught of marshmallows.

The only way from there
is directly into the creek.
Then go up the hill
and trace the crow-black
abandoned strip mall parking lot’s
Pollack-stripes of tar
into the humid expanse
until nothing has a name.

It may seem like you’re going
in a circle.
That’s perfectly natural;
you’re almost there.
Just bang a hard left
through your father’s Jersey City
and turn wide
around your mother’s ear,
through the cigarettes and pigeons.

At this point,
you’ll be under the compass.
Which is not being lost
and also is not somewhere but not nowhere.

Photo by Walt Stoneburner, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Poem by Daniel Bowman.

________________

Buy a year of Every Day Poems, just $5.99 — Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In May we’re exploring the theme Swans, Swallows, Phoenix.

Every Day Poems Driftwood

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat
L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.
L.L. Barkat
Latest posts by L.L. Barkat (see all)
  • Poetry Prompt: In the Wild Secret Place - January 6, 2025
  • Journeys: What We Hold in Common - November 4, 2024
  • Poetry Prompt: My Poem is an Oasis - August 26, 2024

Filed Under: Blog, Learn, Poems, poetry, Poetry Classroom, poetry teaching resources

Try Every Day Poems...

About L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular 'Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing.' Her poetry has appeared on the BBC and at NPR, VQR, and The Best American Poetry.

Comments

  1. L. L. Barkat says

    May 21, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    i like a surreal poem now and then. What do you think makes a good one, Dan?

    especially liked the last bit…

    “also is not somewhere but not nowhere”

    Reply
  2. Dan says

    May 28, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    Well, for this poem I was playing around with the idea that in our age, information (“directions”) is everywhere and instantly available on nearly any topic. Yet, as Job 28:12 ask, “But where can wisdom be found?”

    We get all the info about how to do things well, how to thrive, how to ensure human flourishing in our lives and communities, yet we often feel as lost and troubled as if we had nothing to go by, no directions at all.

    So the directions in the poem are surreal non-directions, meaningless in the sense that they will help you achieve a specific goal or destination, but meaningful insofar as they allude to home, family, journey, and identity.

    I think the surreal can work when it serves a purpose and is anchored in the universal– in this case, the archetypal experience of feeling lost, disoriented, or alien to your world and even to yourself.

    Reply
    • L. L. Barkat says

      May 28, 2013 at 8:22 pm

      so the surreal deals in the subterranean, perhaps? And maybe that’s why we follow along with it, though on the surface it seems disoriented. We sense the depths. We’re drawn.

      Reply
      • L. L. Barkat says

        May 28, 2013 at 9:00 pm

        Just remembering that one of our themes last Fall was Surrealism. This was a favorite poem of mine that came along for the occasion:

        http://us2.forward-to-friend1.com/forward/preview?u=9e5e4dd4731a9649c1dd1cf58&id=f4ebeeefe6

        And it is subterranean. Ha. Literally and figuratively (“I Dreamt that You Were Eating Dirt” 😉 )

        Reply
        • Dan says

          May 28, 2013 at 10:59 pm

          LOVE that! It reminds me that for poets, the surreal is another avenue that can help us twist language into new and fresh phrases, lines, and even entire idioms. Our work won’t get stale when we take risks like that, at least occasionally.

          Also, it occurs to me that the surreal can help us get out of the voice we normally adopt, to establish a new tone that challenges the assumption that the speaker of the poem is always simply the poet, or some version of him or her (as is so often the case in today’s poetry). Jack Leax did this in his book TABLOID NEWS (WordFarm, 2005). He had established his voice with plainspoken nature poems, but then came to a point in his career where he felt he was just repeating himself. He didn’t, as he put it, know how to “break that contract” with readers who came to his work with certain long-established expectations.

          So he went way out into left field and did a book of poems based on supermarket tabloid headlines. The material is absurdist and often surreal. And the project allowed him to reinvent himself, energizing him for future writing.

          Reply
  3. Dan says

    May 28, 2013 at 11:03 pm

    I can’t resist sharing a poem by one of my all-time favorite (and very underrated) poets, a Japanese dream-scape/surrealist poet named Nobuko Kimura.

    THE VILLAGE BEYOND

    I woke from a nap and yawned
    and the yawn ended up being reflected in a rainbow
    and because the rainbow, exactly as it was, arched over the village beyond, too,
    in the village beyond that’s unknown to me
    everyone knows about my yawn, I’m told.
    They compare my swollen eyelids and unkempt hair to funny things
    and there’s even a folkloric legend about me, I’m told.
    Nonetheless no one in the village believes
    that I truly exist, I’m told.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our June Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Bethany on Poet Laura: Fables and Foxy Chickens
  • L.L. Barkat on Poet Laura: Fables and Foxy Chickens
  • A Novel in Verse: "Eugene Nadelman" by Michael Weingard - Tweetspeak Poetry on Poetry, Fiction, or What? “The Long Take” by Robin Robertson
  • Sandra Heska King on 50 States of Generosity: Rhode Island

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy