Insights into writing object poems
The day that is saturated
the harbour that is bruised
wavelands of graffiti
and movements of poetry.
Excerpt from The Skim by Jill Jones
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We'd love to see poems that aim for surprise and take risks, poems that see things/objects in a new way. While objects may seem simple, tangible, perceptible things, they are full of linguistic as well material complexities and resistances. For instance, the Latin words that our word ‘object’ came from have, variously, ideas of throwing, hindering or placing, or the idea of a thing that is put before or presented to the mind. And, of course, the word ‘object’ is associated with dissent or opposition as well as purposes and ends. Therefore, we are interested in poems that push writing beyond representation into the intricacies of things in this world. So, surprise yourself, and explore what interests you, puzzles you, draws you to, or scares you about the object.
Poems are also objects. They are made of words. They have form as objects have form. Objects are put together in certain ways and connect to the world in certain ways just as poems are put together in certain ways through linguistic elements, sound elements, visual structures. Has your poem, as its own object, allowed something new into the world, your world?
The object may have an ordinary, day-to-day meaning or purpose, as many objects do, but it will also have a strange, or other meaning. Ask yourself what may be the mystery of the object, the thing that will always be hidden, by it, in it, past it, because of it. Think about how you connect your words to the object you are writing about. Think about whether you want a minimal version, or a surreal version, a playful version, an emotional reverberation, a conceptual or formal viewpoint.
Objects also exist in time as does the reading and saying of poems. This idea of temporality may mean the object changes as you change and will relate to your memory and experience of the world. We will be looking for poems that show the many ways to experience the object in time as well as in place.
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Jill Jones is the 2016 Judge for Red Room Poetry Object.
She has published eight full-length books of poetry, and a number of chapbooks. In 1993 she won the Mary Gilmore Award for her first book of poetry,The Mask and the Jagged Star (Hazard Press). Her latest books are The Beautiful Anxiety (Puncher and Wattmann 2014), which won the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry... read more »
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To find out more:
Red Room Poetry Object is a poetry writing competition inviting young writers and their teachers from across Australia and New Zealand to submit poems about 'talismanic' objects that are special to them. Red Room Poetry Object is open to students in grades 3-10 and their teachers. In 2015, Red Room Poetry Object linked over 160 school communities and published 2560 student and teacher poems.
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