Poetry from Daily Life: Fill a sack with meaningful objects — that's your idea bag

I’m proud to host Poetry from Daily Life. Since starting the column in November 2023, a growing number of wonderfully talented guests from across America and beyond have added their wit and wisdom to the conversation. Together we are making this unique column a treasure of poetry tips, stories, and poems. I’m grateful to all of you for reading what we have to offer. I hope you will share these columns with others who will enjoy them. ~ David L. Harrison

A sack of ideas

Ted Geisel used to tell kids he got his ideas from a certain store where he went from time to time to get a sack of them. He may have fudged about the store, but you really can fill a sack with ideas. I know good teachers who do that at the beginning of the year to help their students introduce themselves to their classmates. The number may vary but the technique works.

Bring from home, three items small enough to fit into this sack (provided). Think of things that have special meaning for you. When I call your name, please stand and show us what you brought in your sack and tell why each one is important to you.

I once filled a theoretical sack with five important personal objects. Here’s what I chose, and why.

A hunting knife: When I was fourteen, my dad brought it home for me from a business trip. It’s a good knife with good steel, more expensive than he could afford in those days. I knew he had splurged to make me happy. I valued it too much to ever use it. I know exactly where it is right now.

A book: When I was four years old, my mother bought a small book that contained Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. My Uncle Wayne had bet her a dollar she couldn’t teach me the speech. I memorized it and recited it at church.

A baseball: That same Uncle Wayne went to a Cardinals game and afterwards stood in line to get a baseball autographed for me by Stan Musial. He said I was his favorite nephew. (He had no other.) When I was little, he taught me to wink. When I was older, he took us to a Playboy Club. Everyone should have an Uncle Wayne.

A tin box of crinoid fossils: When I was 12, Billy Pauly and I were best friends. One day near his farm, we rappelled down into a cave where we shouldn’t have gone and came out with our pockets filled with fossils and a bear skull that rests even now less than a yard from my keyboard. Here’s to friends. It only takes one to make life more complete.

A picture: One of my favorite pictures is of Sandy when she was three or four. I didn’t meet her for another dozen years, but I never tire of looking at the picture of my future. I know I live with the real thing, but certain pictures stir our emotions like nothing else can.

These five items have often appeared in my work. I recommend the technique, whether you are facing a group of people or sitting alone at your desk.

Hey

At lunch today I see Billy.

“Hey,” we say.

“How’s it going?”

We don’t stop to say more.

Can’t think of anything.

From third grade on

we were best friends,

sleeping over

at each other’s house.

Rode horses,

teased his sister…

I think of the night

we laughed so hard

he fell out of bed.

Now he’s in homeroom 106.

I’m in 107.

And all we can say,

when we meet at lunch is,

“Hey, how’s it going?”

(From "Connecting Dots," Wordsong, 2004)

David L. Harrison is Missouri’s seventh poet laureate as well as Drury University’s poet laureate. He has published more than 100 books of poems, stories, nonfiction, and books for classroom teachers that have received numerous awards. To learn more, visit his website at http://davidlharrison.com.