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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: This is Just to Say

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Earlier this week, I posted about mentor text, and how can use them to inspire new poems of your own. Today, I wanted to share another effort. This one is based on what I suspect might be the most-used mentor-text poem ever, and a poem which changed my world.

First, the poem, by William Carlos Williams, which I hope you’ve come across before:

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox    (read the rest of this copyright poem here)
This poem, written as a note of apology, was one of the first free verse poems I remember reading. It was my first year of high school, and our teacher gave us the poem to read, discuss and, yes, mimic in poems of our own. I remember being amazed that poems could be written that way. Years later, when I wrote my first verse novel, Pearl Verses the World, I gave that experience to Pearl:
Pearl Verses the World
One day Granny read me
A poem
About a man stealing a plum
Granny, I remember saying
Why are there no rhymes
In that poem?
Granny laughed.
Why, Pearl, didn’t you know
A poem does not have to rhyme?…
A poem, comes
When it is needed
And writes itself
In the way it needs
To get its point across.
(from Pearl Verses the World,  2009, p. 63 Copyright Sally Murphy)

 

Anyway, back to the use of a mentor text. Williams’ This is Just to Say ahs been used in classrooms and by writers as a mentor text many many times.  There have even been books written based on the poem, my favourite of which is Joyce Sidman’s This is Just to Say: Poems of  Apology and Forgiveness.

Here is my own attempt a ‘This is Just to Say’ poem. I stuck with  the food  theme, and also gave an extra nod to Williams’ poem with my mention of plums.

This is just to say

I have eaten

the cake

that was in

the pantry

 

and which

you were probably

saving

for visitors.

 

Forgive me.

We had

no peaches

and no icy plums.

 

(Copyright Sally Murphy, 2015)

 

Have you ever written a This is Just to Say Poem? Or do you have your own favourite mentor text? I’d love to hear about it.

This post is part of Poetry Friday, where bloggers around the world post about poetry every Friday. Later today, you’ll see a round up of all the Poetry Friday posts at Penny’s blog.

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