Writing Materials, After Sally Wen Mao’s “Nucleation”
Take stock of the objects/materials surrounding you with a short list. You can look at the structure of the room surrounding you, the nearby furnishings, the drink at hand, the clothing you are wearing, nearby books or papers, etc.
Focus on one thing from your list of object/material to focus on for the rest of the freewrite. This should be an object/material that interests you, that you have some experience with (using, making, caring for, etc.), and one that you can research with relative ease.
Time yourself as you write in some way (with a timer, the length of a song, or the length of a page). Write for roughly 10 minutes in response to the following prompt. Try to write for the whole time, without stopping, in sentences, with no line breaks. Work to get all of your thoughts on the page, without worrying about what you are writing, or how. It is encouraged to follow wherever your mind leads.
Some questions to consider:
- What materials comprise this object?
- How is this object made?
- How did you acquire this object/material?
- What experiences are yoked to this object/material? What memories does it evoke?
- What questions do you have about this object/material?
After you have written for 10 minutes, research your object/material for 10-15 minutes, and make notes of facts that you find significant, interesting, or strange.
Read "Nucleation" by Sally Wen Mao.
Some Questions to Consider:
- What kind of information does the speaker provide about nucleation?
- What types of sources does she use? Does she leave any important information out?
- What connection is there between the subject of this poem and how the poem looks on the page?
- What is the connection between a pearl and the speaker’s memory of visiting the museum? Why does she begin the poem with a description of pearl agriculture, and end with a memory?
Writing Assignment
Write a poem that connects your object/material to a memory. Include your knowledge of the object/material, and your research.
Maggie Queeney (she/her) is the author of In Kind (University of Iowa Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize, and settler (Tupelo Press, 2021). She received the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, a Ruth Stone Scholarship, and an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago in both 2019 and 2022. Her work appears in the Kenyon Review, Guernica, the Missouri Review, and The...