miss rosie
by Lucille Clifton

when I watch you
wrapped up like garbage
sitting, surrounded by the smell
of too old potato peels
or
when I watch you
in your old man's shoes
with the little toe cut out
sitting, waiting for your mind
like next week's grocery
I say
when I watch you
you wet brown bag of a woman
who used to be the best looking gal inGeorgia
used to be called the Georgia Rose
I stand up
through your destruction
I stand up

It’s hard to escape “miss rosie.” She is everywhere just as the speaker is everywhere. We might recognize our own gaze in the watchful, judgmental, and direct gaze of the speaker who notices how this poor woman wears “old man’s shoes/with the little toe cut out.” In the character of miss rosie, as she is brought to life through startling and precise images, similes and metaphors, we might see the homeless woman on the street corner—perhaps even our mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. Who is the woman being watched? What might it mean to watch a person you once knew as beautiful and loved become a “wet brown bag of a woman”? How common, insulting, and necessary is this urge to stand up through someone else’s destruction? Does responsibility play a role in this poem?

I have heard students call this poem sad, disrespectful, angering, powerful, true, and false. After discussing our personal responses to “miss rosie,” I often ask my students to consider somebody they have observed closely and to try writing their own “miss rosie” poems for or about that person. Students work to paint a picture with words of somebody they either know personally or have seen frequently. The exercise becomes an engaged character study. I ask them to use similes and metaphors while addressing that person directly. As writers, they are expected to be both observers and communicators, aware of their relationship with the person they choose to portray. How will they use the literary tools of imagery, simile and metaphor to breath life and color into their subject? What do they want to say to the person of their choice?

Clifton’s careful and short line breaks—how she moves the poem along—is a skill we discuss. Usually, students findClifton’s lack of punctuation to be freeing and empowering, as the rules of grammar clearly don’t apply to the rules, or anti-rules, of poetry. I encourage students to followClifton’s form as they explore their own images, tones, and subjects. The slow movement of this poem and the ways in which each line leads us, painfully, to the next, is something to be studied. As a result, many students begin their poems with the words “when I watch you” and stay close toClifton’s form, as they find a personal path in the luminous dark.

Student Sample:

When I Watch You
by Tina Deonarine

when I watch you
back in 1995 you were small
now you’re big as a Ferris wheel
sitting, surrounded by a fireplace
drinking hot chocolate by the smell of s’mores
or
when I watch you
near the christmas tree feeling
like spikes on a porcupine
go outside, make angels in the snow
snowman, snowball, snow globe
I say
when I watch you
sitting by the window
looking at the snow fall
I see
light reflecting on the window
making the ice melt
or
when I watch you
tucked in your bed and say
“good night”

-Maya Pindyck

Maya Pinkyck is a poet and T&W teaching artist. You can read more about Maya here.