At the Nature Matters workshop earlier this month, we read aloud together ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-Tale’ by N. Scott Momaday. A few lines from the opening:

I am a feather on the bright sky

I am the blue horse that runs in the plain

I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water

I am the shadow that follows a child

I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows

I am an eagle playing with the wind

And I love that line from near the ending. ‘I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful.’ It’s joyful, it’s everyday, it’s an invocation. I love it.

You can watch N. Scott Momaday himself read an excerpt of ‘The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee’ on YouTube. ‘You see, I am alive, I am alive’ – the voice of life, the breath of life run through this poem.

I love the list poem as form. Like I Remember, the I Am poem has the iterative power of repetition, which also lends a strong rhythm to the writing. There is a reason why such poems are often passed down in oral literary traditions.

Repetition brings something of the ritual too, here celebrating the interconnectedness of all things. Feathers, horses, shadows, fish: the personification here is powerful. As Joy Harjo says in a fine short essay, it inscribes the idea that ‘the Earth, all beings, are wired toward healing’. It conveys an affirmative energy.

Also note there are subtle variations bringing shifts in pace to keep our interest: syntax, line length, the use of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And there is plenty of concrete sensory detail to ground us.

Best of all: it’s easy, it’s accessible. You can let your perceptions and your observations and your memories wash over you and through you and out into your writing.

As a writing experiment: write your own Delight Songs, including things that come naturally to you.

You could write a Delight Song based on your favourite associations from the natural world.

You could pack a notebook when you go hillwalking, and write a Delight Song on a mountain top.

You could write a Delight Song sitting on a bench in a park you love, or tap one into your phone as you stand on a busy street corner in the city where you live.

You could write a Delight Song about the books who have made you the reader and writer you are today.

You could write a Delight Song on a special theme (trees, seasons, teachers).

You could write a Delight Song as field work for a character in a novel.

You could write a Delight Song out of whatever speaks to you.

And to fire you up, you might want to watch this first. Another jolt of anthem affirmation. And really: what a feat of choreography!

***

Update, February 2024: N. Scott Momaday died last month. The Paris Review has opened access to its wonderful Art of Poetry interview with him from 2022. As the great man says: ‘I am alive, I am alive’!

Blessings, and gratitude.