The list-with-a-twist structure includes a list that turns–or twists–significantly toward the end.
Lots of poems use the list-with-a-twist structure. Many of the poems listed on this blog under other structures also are lists with twists. The poems here exemplify this structure.
“Orchids are Sprouting from the Floorboards,” by Kaveh Akbar
“Notes on Rejection,” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
“Mother and Daughter,” by Hayan Charara
“Prayer for the Living,” by Hayan Charara
“Birds Appearing in a Dream,” by Michael Collier
“Marginalia,” by Billy Collins
“Questions about Angels,” by Billy Collins
Billy Collins makes great use of the turn in his poems, and the list-with-a-twist structure can be found throughout his oeuvre.
“plato told,” by e. e. cummings
“The Heart asks Pleasure – first,” by Emily Dickinson
“‘Twas just this time, last year, I died,” by Emily Dickinson
“If Hitler also Spelled Hiedler,” by Joe Dolce
“Counting Sheep,” by Russell Edson
“I Am Waiting,” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude,” by Ross Gay
“Things That Don’t Suck,” by Andrea Gibson (from Pansy (Austin, TX: Write Bloody, 2015), p. 45)
“When the Love of Your Life Leaves You,” by Andrea Gibson (from The Madness Vase (Long Beach, CA: Write Bloody, 2011), p. 41)
“Guide to the Other Gallery,” by Dana Gioia
“Majority,” by Dana Gioia Also, a poem that makes use of the retrospective-prospective structure.
“Serious Moonlight,” by Camille Guthrie
“Some Waynes,” by Wayne Holloway-Smith
“Are You Doing the New Amerikan Thing?,” by Juan Felipe Herrera
“Dream Notebook,” by Jane Hirshfield
“To Judgment: An Assay” by Jane Hirshfield
“For the man with the erection lasting more than four hours,” by John Hodgen
“Baghdad Exceeds Its Object,” by Kent Johnson
Please note that the lineation of this version of the poem is off. For an accurate printing of the poem, read it in Kent Johnson’s Lyric Poetry after Auschwitz: Eleven Submissions to the War (Austin, TX: Effing Press, 2005), pp. 28-29, or Homage to the Last Avant-Garde (Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2008), pp. 118-19.
“Brother, I’ve seen some…,” by Kabir
“More Foolish Things Remind Me of You,” by X. J. Kennedy
“We Are Afraid,” by Jennifer L. Knox (from A Gringo like Me: Poems (Soft Skull, 2005), pp. 45-46).
“One Train May Hide Another,” by Kenneth Koch
“Capitalist Poem #5,” by Campbell McGrath
“The War Works Hard,” by Dunya Mikhail
“Pity me not because the light of day…,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Now We Are Six,” by A. A. Milne
“One Boy Told Me,” by Naomi Shahib Nye
“I Could Have Loved You–Probably,” by Monica Piotrowski
“Subway Seethe,” by J. Allyn Rosser
“England in 1819,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
from Amoretti (Sonnet LXXI: “Fair is my love…”), by Edmund Spenser
“How to Make an Empty Cardboard Box Disappear in 10 Steps,” by Clint Smith (in Counting Descent (Los Angeles, CA: Write Bloody, 2016): 52)
“alternate names for black boys,” by Danez Smith
“Reciprocity,” by Wislawa Szymborska
“Some People,” by Wislawa Szymborska
“Under One Small Star,” by Wislawa Szymborska
Notice in Szymborska’s poem the final twist toward speech and the making of poems. This self-referential turn is a feature common of a lot of poems. (Check out the Baudelaire and Kinnell poems here.)
Structure & Surprise 
[…] well, um, overlap. For example, you’ll see that I’ve added a structure on this blog called “List-with-a-Twist.” One of the things I mention about that structure is that it is one way to describe MANY poems, […]
Piotrowski and Szymborska on the same page? I think I’ve reached my goal!
Yes–you’ve arrived, Monica…congrats!
Thanks again for letting me post your terrific poem!
[…] Wislawa Szymborska’s Some People, a poem employing a List-with-a-Twist Structure, the window-moment occurs at the poem’s final twist. As Hirshfield notes of the […]
[…] this blog’s pages devoted to specific kinds of turns, including “Duck/Rabbit” and “Marginalia.”) And, as an anthologist, Collins tends to select works that feature prominent turns–I […]
[…] One of the things I like best about my online work with the poetic turn here and over at Voltage Poetry is that it’s allowed me to come into contact with some great folk, terrific artists, poets and thinkers. Most recently, this work has put me in touch with Joe Dolce, who has allowed me to reprint the above poem, which, among other things is a great example of a list-with-a-twist. […]
[…] List-with-a-Twist Structure […]