Writing the Container Poem

with poems & prompts by Ellen Stone

“As if ripeness begins with me, that gloss.”

This week’s guest writer is Ellen Stone. Purchase her new book below!

From Ellen Stone—I have always loved container poems. Maybe it is because I see poems as little containers themselves. Poems hold so much, our despair, fears, wishes. I think objects, especially ordinary objects hold much of who we are, too. I think of my dad and a garden hoe or trowel, my grandmother and her soup pot, my mother and her black wool scarf.

When I was little, my uncle wrote a poem about a peanut butter jar, and it featured my brother and sisters and me. It became a bit of childhood lore, that poem. But it stuck. We are what we do, what we eat, what holds us. I realized along the way that I have a cupboard full of empty jars. I collect them as my father used to. He collected jars because we canned most of our food and did not always have money to pay for new canning jars. I just like the ways glass jars feel and look—the way that they last, have a purpose and yet, are beautiful. But I also make jam and jelly regularly, the one aspect of my childhood spent preserving food that carries over into my adulthood. So, I guess I identify with those little jars that hold such sweetness.

Photo by Keri Sidney on Unsplash

Somewhere along the line, I learned this “My life as a ----” template and it is so satisfying!

How can embodiment provide a sort of container for the poem that wants to be written?

Okay! Ready to write?