Writing About Your Childhood Home Without Writing a Nostalgic Poem

The childhood home is the subject every poet reaches for and most get wrong. A judge on the three moves that turn a home poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the home or about you, and the one detail that always works.

The childhood home is the subject every poet reaches for, and most get it wrong. Every contest pile has a stack of home poems that are nostalgic, the kind that say 'I remember' and 'the way it was' and 'the time that is gone' in the language of a diary entry. The home poem is the poem that is most likely to be a memory instead of a poem.

The home poem that works is not about the home. It is about the person who lived in it.

The nostalgic trap

The nostalgic home poem is the one that tells you how good the home felt. The safety, the comfort, the belonging, the time that is gone. It is accurate and it is flat, because the home is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader already knows.

A poem about a childhood home should not describe the home. It should describe the thing the home did to the person who lived in it.

The three moves that turn a home poem into a real one

Move one: put a person in it. The home poem that works has a person in it, a parent, a sibling, a self. The home is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the home, not the home itself.

Move two: give the home a body. The home should be doing something to the body, the floor that is creaking, the door that is sticking, the light that is coming through the window in a specific way. If the home is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

Move three: let the home change you. The best home poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the home is the thing that changed them. The home is the agent; the poem is the change.

The question that decides

Here is the question I ask when I am judging a home poem: is this poem about the home, or is it about the person in the home? If the answer is the home, it is a nostalgic poem. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.

The nostalgic poem says 'this is how it felt'. The real home poem says 'this is what the home did to me'. The difference is the difference between a diary and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'I remember the house I grew up in, the way the stairs creaked and the way the light came through the window and the way it felt like home.' The home is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I learned to read in the corner of the kitchen where the light was best, and I have been reading in the corner of every kitchen since.' The home is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who has been changed by the home, not the home itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a love letter to the home. The love letter is not a poem; it is a thank-you note. The poem is the thing that the home did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

If you want to see a home poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on home and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The home is the stage. The person is the play.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the childhood collection covers the deeper method. The imagery module is the page to read next, and the volta module is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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