Read the poem
Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you
Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…
Use the selection of prompts below the poem
Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…
Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes
Story Time
Tell that one about Catherine
who carried her doll to college
and when her baby died
she threw her doll in the river.
Tell that one
And the one when the old engineer
liked his locomotive so much
he lived there and they had to
build him a house with a whistle.
I like that.
And the successful racehorse with a fancy stall
fixed up like a Western clubhouse
with an old tennis shoe nailed
for luck above the door.
That’s a good one.
But I’m tired of this long story
where I live, these houses with people
who whisper their real lives away
while eternity runs wild in the street,
and you suffocate.
Yes, and how about the boy who always
granted others their way to live,
and he gave away his whole life
till at last nothing was left for him?
Don’t tell that one.
Bring me a new one, maybe with a dog
that trots alongside, and the desert with a hidden
river no one else finds, but you go there
and pray and a great voice comes.
And everything listens.
—William Stafford
Please join in for Round 7 of Writing From The Inside Out by attending the October 2020 read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (it’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:
Next Read Around is October 9, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST
My Thoughts
Stories serve as the lifeblood of our lives, rendering the meaningless meaningful and punctuating our experiences into digestible and transferable chunks we convey to delight, frighten, educate, entertain, and transform one another. The stories we share and know about each other weave us together in bonds of intimacy. Through stories, we bring others into our own hearts and minds and take up residence in the hearts and minds of others.
Most of us have fond memories of sitting together and telling stories, perhaps by a campfire or on a dark winter night, or simply in our every day conversation as we share tales of daily life, or when we hear some delicious gossip about an old flame or learn the fate of an old rival. In the end, the facts about a life — the birth date, the death date, the major accomplishments — tell little about the person's character and spirit and only hint at the inner richness and the struggles endured to navigate the challenges and opportunities on the journey.
William Stafford’s poem, Story Time, highlights the intimacy found in shared stories. The opening phrase, “tell the one about…”, with similar openings for each stanza, indicates that the tale is familiar both to the narrator and to the audience to whom he speaks. And even though we don’t know the details, it invites us into his inner circle, treating us like dear friends. The intimacy is even deepened by hinting at stories that are better not told. You are turly in the inner circle if you know what is permissible to tell and what is taboo.
The poem takes an ominous turn in the 4th stanza as Stafford exposes the dangerous trap of stories that “whisper away our real lives;” perhaps in those we tell so often that we lose our life to them. Stafford ends the poem leading the reader beyond the old stories we tell or hide and inviting new ones, ones that bring water in the desert and open our ears to listen to life once again.
Week 26 Prompt Menu
Use the opening line, “Tell that one about…” as a prompt for your own poem. You can expound on one story or use the poetic technique of anaphora, as Stafford does, by repeating the same or similar opening lines for most verses.
Describe how the power of stories have impacted your family or cirlce of friends.
Pick a story that you tell in first person and retell it in third person, as if it is about someone else (or vice versa—tell someone else’s story as if it is your own).
Pick a story that you tell, ideally one you repeat (even if only to yourself) and retell it, giving it a new twist or a new ending. For example, if you hear someone say or if you run a line like, “this always happens to me,” then the word “this” holds a repeated storyline. Many similar sentences with “always” or “never” often serve as a cover for a life storyline.
Write a poem about a taboo story or topic in your family or circle of friends. As a stretch, write around the incident without saying what it is.
Stafford ends his poem with a metaphoric description of what he hopes will happen with the introduction of new stories juxtaposing something simple, like the image of a dog trotting alongside a person, with the image of a desert river that speaks in a great voice. Use your own metaphors to describe what qualities in a new story would, to you, make everything listen.
Consider what each snippet of story in Stafford’s poem is about or is teaching you. For instance, the first stanza may be about how one deals with grief and loss or what marks a loss of innocence or some other personal or collective rite of passage in life.
Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.