Robert Lowell’s poem “The Scream” is based on a short story by Elizabeth Bishop, “In the Village.”

Write a poem based on a short story of your choosing. Like Lowell, give the poem a name different than the name of the short story–but let us know, either in an epigraph like Lowell or in some other way, what short story your poem is based on.

THE SCREAM

(Derived from Elizabeth Bishop’s story, “In the Village”)

A scream, the echo of a scream,

now only a thinning echo…

As a child in Nova Scotia,

I used to watch the sky,

Swiss sky, too blue, too dark.

A cow drooled green grass strings,

made cow flop, smack, smack, smack!

and tried to brush off its flies

on a lilac bush–all,

forever, at one fell swoop!

In the blacksmith’s shop,

the horseshoes sailed through the dark,

like bloody little moons,

red-hot, hissing, protesting,

as they drowned in the pan.

Back and away and back!

Mother kept coming and going–

with me, without me!

Mother’s dresses were black

and white, or black-and-white.

One day she changed to purple,

and left her mourning. At the fitting,

the dressmaker crawled on the floor,

eating pins, like Nebuchadnezzar

on his knees eating grass.

Drummers sometimes came

selling gilded red

and green books, unlovely books!

The people in the pictures

wore clothes like the purple dress.

Later, she gave the scream,

not even loud at first …

when she went away I thought

“But you don’t have to love everyone,

your heart won’t let you!”

A scream! But they are all gone,

those aunts and aunts, a grandfather,

a grandmother, my mother–

even her scream–too frail

for us to hear their voices long.