(From What If? By Ann Bernays and Pamela Painter, contributed by Suzy Spraker)

Objective: This exercise is for writers to practice showing in poetry with the use of details and to use ambivalence as a tool for poetry.

"Ambivalence is a crucial concept in the writing of poetry…Most sophisticated poems…contain at least two different emotions or attitudes that create what is referred to as poetic tension. Consider your mixed feeling. And be honest about them!"

-- Susan Minot

This poem will explore the mixed feelings you have about a particular person or a particular experience. The poem will not state the feelings-it will show them. And the poem need not resolve the feeling.

If you were writing about the mixed feelings you have about a grandfather, you might begin by remembering a particular moment when you and your grandfather were together that called up the mixed feelings you had/have about him. Did he frighten you with his loud voice and his rough manners when you were six years old, while at the same time you felt protected by him? Did he criticize you when you were thirteen for something you did? Was he kind and loving to you but mean to your grandmother so that you loved and hated him at the same time?

Requirements:

1. Before you begin the poem, write the scene as a prose sketch first. Give an exact time and place for it. What year was it? What month? What time of day? Was the sun shining through the windows of the living room? Fill the sketch with concrete details. Don't think of writing a poem as you d o this-concentrate on writing this as good, clear, vivid prose. Recall something your grandfather said. Recreate his words as exactly as you can. Recall his physical actions too.
2. Take the material from your sketch and begin shaping it into a poem. Use as much or little as you see fit, and feel free, of course, to add things as you go along.
3. Avoid abstractions. Show rather than tell. Specific, concrete language will be most effective to recreate the particular moment(s) and the person or event you are writing about.

Example: Mixed Feelings Poem

Beer. Milk. The Dog. My Old Man. -- Kim Addonizio

My old man used to take the dog
out to the garage
where the poker game was
and set down a bowl
of beer, that's the kind of thing
he thought was funny. He used to
give me some too and laugh when I
threw up or fell over
a chair. He taught me to fight
by smacking the side of my head
with his open hand, calling me
a pussy. Don't' let them give you
any shit he said. When he smacked
my mother she didn't hit back,
just yelled at him. Once she threw
a glass of milk at his head.
It hit the wall and broke
to pieces on the floor.

I was ten when he died.
Too young to figure it out.
What I thought about was the milk
on the kitchen floor that time,
how they'd both
left it there and gone to bed.
The dog got to it and swallowed glass.
My mother said the dog
just got sick. The milk
evaporated she said.
Meaning it just
went into the air.
I thought, how could something
be there and then not? Milk.
The dog. My old man. He loved

a cold beer. Sometimes I'd sit up
at night in the garage and watch
how he drank it, tipping his head
way back, and I'd try to drink mine
exactly the same,
but quietly, so he wouldn't notice
and send me away.