by Dana Guthrie Martin
I love first lines of poems. Scratch that. What I mean to say is I love first lines of poems when they work well. For me, a first line works well when it pulls me into the poem or slaps me on the face or does something I’ve never seen a first line do before or is quirkily engaging or makes me laugh or makes me have to know more.
There are probably a host of other qualities that make a first line work for me, but I can’t think of them all. What I do know and can identify is when a first line is working. I know immediately, in my body, before I am able to analyze and catalog the reason or reasons the line is working.
Sometimes when I get a new poetry collection, I flip through the entire book looking only at first lines. Sometimes I will buy a collection only if many of the first lines grab me. First lines are huge for me. Huge! And yet in spite of this, or perhaps because of this, I often sit at my computer wondering how to start a new poem. Oh the blasted first line! How to write it! What to write! What not to write!
Breaking the ice with that first line is never an easy task, but often when I get a good first line, the rest of the poem flows right in.
What makes a first line work for you? Are you as first-line obsessed as I am? Do first lines hang you up? Do they get you down?
For this installment of Games Poets Play, I thought we could do two things in the comments of this post:
- Find first lines from our poetry collections that we love and leave them here. (Note: Don’t leave the whole poem for copyright reasons — just the first line. You can also include the name of the poet and the poem’s title if you want so that members can track the poem down and read it in its entirety.)
- Discuss why you love the first lines you are selecting. Not everyone’s criteria for a successful first line will be the same, and it would be interesting to see what different members feel makes this or that first line a success.
- Write a first line of your own based on the first line you select as a favorite — something you feel responds to or riffs off the first line you have chosen.
You can leave as many of your favorite lines and as many of your own lines in the comments section as you like. Writing your own first lines might inspire you to write an entire poem, which is great. But don’t feel any pressure to do so. We’re just playing games here, you know? No pressure to complete a poem or even start one (beyond the first line). We’re out to have The Good Times, without the pressure of production resting on our writing implements and weighing our hands down.
Dana Guthrie Martin is the founder of Read Write Poem. In 2010, she is taking a break from completing poems so she can study their component parts, while at the same time learning a new musical instrument, most likely the oboe.
I’m with you completely on first lines. In the scheme of things I think probably the end of a poem is more important, but the first line is key and should intrigue or excite. I loved how you made the first line of Beowulf into “We hate the gardenias in the garden,” for example, because of the strong feeling (love gets much more time that hate), and also because putting “gardens” and “gardenias” together in one line, esp. the first line, seems ill-advised, but in fact works boldly.
There are so many ee cummings first lines the charm me immediately. I’m happy he never titled his poems, and they’re just known by the first line. I think of “my love is building a building” (strangely like the garden/gardenia thing – that must be why I think of it). Also “if everything happens that can’t be done,” and “i sing of Olaf glad and big.”
Today I’ve got Cesar Vallejo in my bookbag and offer up a couple of his first lines that have always struck me in the best way:
“My chest wants and does not want its color” – weirdly enough there’s that repeat again want/not want. I like the conundrum of this line and the idea that the chest has a “color.”
Another Vallejo first line I love is “How much 14 there has been in existence!,” the first line of the poem “Anniversary.” I suppose the connection is not that obvious, but this poem inspired me to write a poem called “There’s so much Sunday in Saturday.” (long ago penned and since accepted).
I bet I’ll be back to this thread with more after work . . .
See, I’m always more charmed by the last lines. It’s great to get a hook in right at the beginning, but as with so many other things, if I had to pick an engaging start versus a satisfying finish I’d go with the second. (Of course, the ideal is to have both.)
The mood of the poem naturally affects what you get; if it’s a melancholy thoughtful poem, the first line is best if it’s asking mysterious questions. If it’s a sexually-charged celebration of the body, then that exuberance should carry through in the form and content. For me at least, it’s difficult to tell whether the first line is suitable until I read through the whole; judging poems by first lines alone sometimes leads to a let-down when you realize the rest of it doesn’t carry the same tone. Last lines have that problem less often, I think.
I don’t suppose you’d dig some last-line contributions as well? ^_^
angie werren replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 11:06 am
I’m with Joseph on the last lines; I love a poem that turns itself upside down with an ending you didn’t see coming.
but I do need a good beginning line to draw me into a poem in the first place, to hit me right between the eyes. two of my current favorites are both by David Moolten — from The Escape: “The murderer at the knee-high kindergarten table” and from Medusa: “All they let you see is her head when you walk”
you want to read the rest of the poems now, don’t you? that’s what I mean.
angie werren replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 11:08 am
sorry — I put this in the wrong spot somehow.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
First lines, last lines, whatever you want to share and talk about. The point of this column is to play. I am just trying to provide a way to play a little.
Well, SarahJ, since I am in the midst of writing my review of your chapbbok, I can’t help but quote one my favorite Sarah J. Sloat first lines… from “Ghazal with Heavenly Bodies” : “If the moon comes out bearing nicks and bite marks” Another great one that grabbed me right away, from a poem whose title is also the first line, “God Have Pity on the Smell of Gasoline”
On the subject of first lines, my own writing is usually jumpstarted by a firstline that pops into my head. I’m much more of a “first line” poet than a “oh that’ a great idea for a poem” type of poet. Once the line comes, the poem follows and the subject makes itself known.
Great idea for a discussion, Dana!
SarahJ replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Thanks Jill. Funny enough the bite-marked moon was a line nursed for ages and I could never execute a poem with it, until it found its way into that ghazal.
I’m also not much of an idea poet for starters – usually the beginning or end occurs to me first.
I like the first lines of two poems I’ve been reading lately by Louis Zukofsky, “A” from the poem “A” and “The” from the poem “Poem beginning ‘The’”. I like the way both lines are absolutely simple and at the same time imply a whole world of thought and feeling about what a poem does and how a poet sees with a particular vision.
I think the unique advantage first lines have (and the potential weakness) is that they get to make a first impression on the reader, and we all know the power of first impressions. A lackluster first line has the real chance of sending the reader elsewhere before he/she ever gets in any deeper.
Anyway, how about Marianne Moore’s famous:
“I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.”
from her poem, “Poetry”?
What I like about this line is how thoroughly dismissive and orthogonal it is to the title that preceded it (and beyond that to the whole notion of Poetry in general–an outrageous statement being a particularly dependable way to grab attention).
For me her approach is one of several exploitable opportunities first lines offer: to play off the title and its anticipation of the poem’s intentions.
By taking the poem in another direction, there is an immediate expansion of the poem’s scope and potential. The jolt to the reader also serves notice that the poem will not fit neatly into a folder neatly tabbed “What You Have Come To Expect.”
“Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado”
“If you should ask me where I’ve been all this time”
Pablo Neruda’s poem “There is No Forgetting” begins with this rather simple line much in relation to some natural cycle such as the water cycle. It’s hard to know if this is actually a beginning, middle or end-it really could have been any. But the place that it takes us is one of many possibilities. I love this line because anything could have followed. Sometimes I mentally create a new poem from it because it’s the kind of line that sneaks up on you, that unfolds inside of moments. However, he created a poem with this line, his own history pouring out, his own telling, and I feel connected to him because of the fragility of the line, because it could have been anyone’s, even mine.
So my reaction to the line? I was actually inspired years ago by this poem and my first line was:
“Take me to your madness”
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Your first line is great. I would definitely read on.
Here are some good ones from Dara Wier’s Selected Poems, which I hope to get on the Read Write Poem Virtual Book Tour:
“The crazy priest threw holy water at the coffin”
“I’d fallen off my tricycle”
“Tomorrow is today’s perfect thought.”
“The ‘falling down’ part is fine”
“I looked like a woman looks”
“Really right after the eerie buzz of abstract thinking”
And here is a first line I love written by my friend Jeremy Halinen:
“Flesh pulled from it, feathers plucked first.”
OK, now I am off to write my first lines inspired by these first lines.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 18th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
OK, I don’t know if the relationship between the lines I like and my own is clear, but this is what I ended up writing after spending a little time with those lines:
The undertakers asked if I wanted to see the body again
* * *
I opened the door too soon
* * *
The waterbed moved of its own accord
* * *
The last bone to break was the radius
* * *
I approach men the way I approach a hazardous stretch of road
* * *
You can talk about circles all day, but its not until
* * *
This pillow has muffled too many mouths
Albazaar replied:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
I really liked the line “Flesh pulled from it, feathers plucked first” because it put my stomach in knots! It must be because I was so affected by it.
[...] (As a side note, in an unrelated Read. Write. Poem. conversation about poetic first lines, Sloat shared, “Funny enough, the bite-marked moon was a line nursed for ages and I could never [...]
Here’s mine:
My tears hit the muddy puddle. (a moment of miniature sunami.)
“You do not do, you do not do / Anymore, black shoe.”
It’s kind of goofy, but one of my all-time favorite examples of personification, from Russel Edson:
“Like a white snail the toilet slides into the livingroom, demanding to be loved”
It ends with the toilet “flushing with grief”. Excellent stuff.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
This is the funniest line! I want to see the entire poem. What’s the title?
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
OK, I found it. Yay!
Every line has to hit me. No weak lines. Feels weird to say this, but if I’m honest it’s how I really think/feel about poetry. Even if it’s a fake-out soft-punch line (of course ONLY existing in the mid-section of the poem) which sets me up for the KO–every line must strike. I’m pretty sure this is what drove Plath crazy. (Love the “You do not do…” line SarahJ)
SarahJ replied:
January 19th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Not mine of course! First line of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy.”
I love the first lines of ekphrastic poems (poems inspired by still photos, paintings, statues, etc.) when they immediately focus my attention on a visual detail or visual impression. That instant immersion sweeps me into the rest of the poem. Here are some examples:
1) “Everyone’s head’s too big.”
2) “Why the rough edge of beauty? Why”
3) “Despite the enormous evening sky”
References above are from these poems/poets:
1)”Three Women” by Jay Rogoff
2) “Photograph: Ice Storm, 1971″ by Natasha Trethewey
3) “Carnival Evening” by Linda Pastan
Maybe I see something from both sides here. Sandra Beasley’s Unit of Measure first line, “All can be measured by the standard of the capybara.”, begs more attention to flesh the meaning out. Or in the humorous, from Let Me Count the Waves, “You must not skirt the issue wearing skirts.”, just makes me want more of the same. No question her playful creativeness!
But then, “Some time when the river is ice ask me”, comes in so quietly, unobtrusively, that you might hardly notice the poem is near complete in that single image. It is as loud as winter air isn’t. This is William Stafford’s Ask Me, a profound yet quiet statement of one’s stance in life. I have to ask, which poem will I remember in a year or in five? I already know. So the notion of a “stand out” first line is not the whole of what necessarily satisfies me.
My take on that second example might be, “I wasn’t the first one she chose”.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
January 19th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
I like your line, Neil.
Here are a few I found on http://www.42opus.com/ :
“I pull a dog tick fat as a blueberry”
This nest one is my favorite it makes me giggle every time I read it.
“I’m carrying a black baby inside a white baby inside a floral blouse that serves as dress.”
“Because they threw sand in his eyes.”
“I never win at the game Hump the Hostess
or Musical Beds. ”
“Because we stash words in our temporal lobes”
Will should rate a mention here.
‘To be or not to be,that is the question:’
Powerful short opening line that generations of people have identified with.
Like Joseph Harker, who commented above, I love Russel Edson’s first lines. Some of W.S. Merwin’s prose poems also have wonderful first lines; for example, “At any given moment in your life, eight cakes are being eaten” (from “The Eight Cakes”), and “When a shoelace breaks during use, the ends do not always indulge at once in their new-found liberty” (from “Ends”). In addition to first lines, I love poem titles. Charles Simic has some great titles, such as, “Baby Pictures of Famous Dictators,” “My Weariness of Epic Proportions,” “School for Dark Thoughts,” and “Spoons with Realistic Dead Flies on Them.”
‘If only words had followed her tears she’d have begged him for help’
Metamorphoses- Ovid
the best opening lines, for me, seem to come during revision. one of my professors once said that the first line is the promise, the compact you make with the reader. i like that
Wow! I had not even thought about it before, but you are right, titles also draw me in, but disappointment follows if it falls short.
Now I am going to really have to watch my first line habit, and take note…great read..
This is one of my favorite ways to find inspiration! I belonged to a writing group that often wrote from lines out of published poems. Some lines that have kicked off poems:
What are we in the language of earth?
All my life I have loved more than one thing
corriander being ground in the center of my being
adoration makes me free
not only fire
Love means to learn to look at yourself
every writer is a thief
this is to tell you
the real reason we sit together and breathe
What will you do with your one wild and precious life?
underneath my skin
I have posted my poem written from All My Life I Have Loved More than One Thing as part of my challenge to post one love poem a day until Valentines
at
http://www.wendysmuse.blogspot.com