What Are You Of?

We want to share exercises for you to continue to practice poetry in mythic ways outside of workshops and the Poetry Postcard Fest! Get to the roots of who you are, where you’re from and where you’re going with the What Are You Of exercise.

We often want to talk about where we’re from or where we’re going, but what are you of? This exercise is inspired by Sam Hamill’s poem “Of Cascadia”:

Of Cascadia

I came here nearly forty years ago,
broke and half broken, having chosen
the mud, the dirt road, alder pollen and
a hundred avenues of gray across the sky
to be my teachers and my muses.
I chose a temple made of words and made a vow.

I scratched a life in hardpan. If I cried
for mercy or cried out in delight,
it was because I was a man choosing
carefully his way and his words, growing
as slowly as the trunks of cedars
in the sunlit garden.

Let the ferns and the moss remember
all that I have lost or loved, for I carry
no regrets, no ambition to live it
all again. I can’t make it better
than it’s been or will be again
as the seasons turn and an old man’s heart

turns nostalgic as he drinks alone.
I have lived in Cascadia, no paradise
nor any hell, but both at once and made,
as Elytis said, of the same material.
A poor poet, I studied war and love.
But Cascadia is what I’m of.

To Do The Exercise

The goal of this exercise is to get to the core of who you are and why you are where you are. Tell us in a poem where (or what) you are “of.” Sam includes in his poem personal mythology, his history, tangible environmental elements of the place around him (cedars, dirt road), and some sources/influences (Odysseus Elytis, the Nobel-Prize winning bard).

Start by writing a list of tangible, specific images and elements of your personal history, beliefs, the people and places around you that you feel are a part of you. Get a sense of where you are going and the elements of what you are “of” by tapping into the influences that have brought you to where you are. Now write a poem about that! Try to end the poem with the word “of.” Extra credit if you can use the word “I” as little as possible!

You can see Paul’s original post about this exercise HERE. Did you try the exercise? We want to see it! Share it with us by emailing veronica@cascadiapoeticslab.org. Happy writing!