It's Alive!

Personification is a literary device that assigns human qualities and attributes to non-human objects and beings, including abstractions, flora, fauna, collectives, etc.

Poems to Read:

• "Kites" by Stephanie Burt
• "Get Rid of the X" by Marilyn Chin
• "Grace" by Joy Harjo

Questions to consider, on your own in writing, or in discussion with others:

• In each poem, what is non-human? What is human?
• What is the speaker’s relationship to the non-human?
• What do you learn about the non-human by the end of the poem? About the experience of being a human?

Writing Exercise: Personification Field Journal

For this exercise, you will focus on an inanimate object that you come into contact with every day. This should not be an object that holds sentimental value, or that is unique to you (a work of art by a child, for example). In fact, I urge you to select an object that is relatively boring and utilitarian: a fork or a rubber band, for example.

Over the next week, I want you to keep a field journal about your object. Write an entry in your field journal every day for 3-4 minutes. Time yourself as you write in some way (with a timer, the length of a song, or the length of a page). Write by hand. Try to write for the whole time listed below. Write without stopping, in sentences, with no line breaks.

Topics for field journal entries:
Day 1: Appearance of the object.
Day 2: Social connections and familial systems of the object.
Day 3: Eating, sleeping, and mating habits of the object.
Day 4: Religious beliefs of the object.
Day 5: The object’s fears. The object’s desires.
Day 6: Make contact with your object and take notes.
Day 7: Questions for further study.

Leave your writing for a day or so. Then, using the material gathered during your field journal exercise, you will write a poem that personifies the object you have studied. Start by mining your journal for observations that you found significant, interesting, or strange.

Your poem should put your object in conflict, internal or external, with something or someone: you, another object or abstraction, or the world. It might be useful to return to days 5 and days 7, and begin with the object’s fears or desires, or questions that you have about the object. Begin your poem with that conflict, and see where your object leads. Most importantly, approach this poem, and your object, with wonder and a sense of play.