Traveling through Space, Traveling through Time

Read “LeaveTaking” by Rita Dove several times, out loud or silently, or listen to Dove reading the poem.

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

• This poem starts with an everyday way of traveling through time and space, as the speaker remembers watching an old movie with her child. When and how do you travel through space and time, or work to connect to or imagine other spaces or times, in your life?
• Are there times that you felt like, or realized, that you were a stranger or outsider? Who or what caused you to feel this way? 
• What does the title of this poem “LeaveTaking,” remind you of? Who or what is taking leave in the poem?
• How can a poem be a kind of space travel or time travel?

Assignment:

Write a poem that describes a scene of everyday space and time travel (reminiscing, watching an old movie, listening to a familiar song, reuniting with someone long lost, stepping into a childhood home, visiting a museum, looking at your social media “memories” or timeline, etc.) that transforms, somehow, into actual space or time travel in the poem. In “LeaveTaking,” this turn arrives in the lines “daughter and living room faded that is/ I kept watching but the movie began to dream.” The speaker’s surroundings recede; the movie gains sentience as it dreams. This change in setting reveals a change in the speaker, as she realizes the role of an extraterrestrial, and leaves the living room, and her daughter, behind. 

Your poem should work to reveal the moment that the time or space travel in your poem becomes real, or more real, than the world where the speaker starts the poem. Think about how the setting changes the speaker (“but the movie began to dream”) and the speaker changes the setting (“Translucence then/ nothing at all”). Another possible entrypoint to writing: what if your feelings (about yourself, about your surroundings) became actualized? If feelings of alienation or estrangement (or any other emotions) changed your body, changed your place in the world? Your poem should tell the story of what happens after that transformation.