If you read poetry, you’ve likely heard mention of “poetry of place.” If you write poetry, you no doubt try to incorporate place, in some fashion, in many of your poems. On the surface, “place” sounds like it’s served with a simple noun (i.e., person, place, or thing). Yet place will be more successfully created by establishing ambiance and mood, while at the same time describing specific, physical characteristics that represent that setting.
"Mountain Biker Enjoying a View" - WIX Stock Photo
Some poems are set in a location only within the title, like a scene in a play might indicate “In a park during evening.” The lines that follow may venture into the fury and fear of two men about to engage in a duel, or the laments of a widow who sees nothing but her feet as she treks alone. In these cases, place may be intended only to ground the context.
Other poems, such as Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” not only establish a scene through title or initial lines, but also sustain that place to focus their messages and/or imagery. Here’s Frost’s 2nd stanza of the 4-stanza poem:
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
Frost has been quoted as saying, "All poetry begins with Geography." Many poets agree.
There are and have been literary journals devoted to “place.” Three such current journals are Windfall, with its Pacific Northwest bent, Australia-focused Southerly, and Ecotone. There are also journals and publishers who occasionally run themed issues, anthologies, or literary contests that include “place” as a category.
Whether deemed a category, or yes, even an entire movement, “place” has its place in all manners of writing.
In fiction, and even non-fiction prose, place is typically referred to as “setting.” This might either comprise the physical scene of action, or the background scenery, itself.
In plays, the setting for a scene is “set up” between acts to assist viewers with understanding that a transformation of some kind is at hand. The setting typically enhances the idea of a new or shifting location.
While filming TV episodes or movies, actors perform “on set,” and very often “on locale.” The more evocative and distinctive a set is, the more attractive to viewers, and the more believable.
An example of a setting that’s meant to inform and transport is one such as this:
The setting for a stage play’s 1st-act includes an ornate fireplace surround and mantel that is garnished with a gilt mirror and candlesticks, and flanked by two ornate, high-backed settees. Hung over a carved table with dragonclaw feet, a magnificent, crystal chandelier is swagged, a’glitter with the reflected fire roaring from the chimney box. The period furnishings suggest High Victorian or even Renaissance Revival. From this opulent setting, we assume both an historical period and a place of economic indulgence. Let’s go to aristocratic France.
Quite obviously, writers and directors feel it’s important for their readers and viewers to be transported into a “place,” as well as a scene of action or interaction.
Emotion, too, is quite often interlaced with place, depending on our personal frames of reference.
I recently completed reading a 4-volume, novel series that was set, consecutively, on several different islands of the archipelago of Hawai’i. The books were police procedurals, a genre I occasionally enjoy reading.
Frankly, there were rather more technical errors and awkward, style quirks in the books than I can usually tolerate, as either an editor or reader; however, place won me over, and kept me coming back. I did say it was 4 books — that’s a lot of tolerance.
You see, the author is familiar with parts of Hawai’i, and established that fact clearly with consistent, regional details. Enough so that every scene, indoors and out, recreated a near-palpable physicality of the Pacific islands — not just with a glossary of the correct native flora and fauna, but also with accurate geographic markers, as well as recognizable, local place names, descriptions, cultural mannerisms, and colloquial speaking habits.
"Tropical Island View" - WIX Stock Photo
I know this because I, too, have spent some time in Hawai’i. I have distinctly vibrant memories tied to specific places — especially to that of Kauai’s Na Pali coast.
Along with Oahu and Maui, the island of Kauai features quite prominently in one of the books’ storylines, and the descriptions of known places were so apt that I was transported there again, as I read. These stories didn’t just say they were set in Kauai — they were Kauai. The Hawai’ian archipelago is both distinctly exotic for me and, also, familiar in ways that other foreign locales are not. Yet these other places could come to feel familiar in the hands of a descriptive writer.
I may never visit Fiji, but if I find a writer who can recreate, in vivid and interesting detail, the feel and look of a place, I can be carried there. I can believe it’s real.
This literary magic is something I hope to experience, again and again, as I read in search of descriptive writing. I crave powerful, lyrical, absorbing writing, preferably with few mistakes. Don’t we all? But give me writing immersed in concrete, illustrative, and colorful settings, and I’ll forgive a lot more careless prose than I might otherwise.
Poetry is another matter. A poem is, by its nature, too brief to excuse the careless crafter. I am drawn to place in poetry, even more than I am drawn into it within prose. In poetry, immersion into place is an act of being carried along in harmony with its craft. It’s the same as we’d wish for all writing, but in poetry, any lapse in care allows the momentary framework of “setting” to collapse into a broken, skeletal depiction.
If you are looking for a way to punch up a piece of writing that just seems to lie there, why not have a rethink about how place plays a part in your prose or poetry? Maybe the setting isn’t vivid enough. Maybe there’s no real distinctive setting at all. Or, perhaps, you do have a setting, but it’s all too mundane. Why not switch it up and see where you and your readers are transported then?