First, a happy new year! I hope the year is treating you well so far. I have just spoken with Rachael and she will be bowing out of the blog this semester. I am still here for you and my goal is to continue checking the blog each week for new entries. Please keep it to one entry per week. Also, I want your feedback on how the blog is going? Is it useful to you? Is there something I can do to be more helpful? I'm going to keep the blog up throughout the school year, and as always I ask for your patients as some times of year are more busy than others). I will probably take the summer off from the blog in May, as I will probably be doing field work in environmental science that will keep me away from regular internet access. In May we can decide if you want to pick it up again next school year. I've enjoyed reading your work! Please keep it coming!
Here is a poem of mine for you, with my deepest thanks for you sharing all of your work. I wrote it about the floods in Ames last August.
Language Levels Rising
Anna Keener
A flood of words
Came rushing through
My town today
After a night of
Clouds breaking,
A down-pouring of letters
This morning, I remember
They forecasted snow
No one knew it could happen
This bad
Language levels rising
Words at our doors
Swirls of nouns tangled in blasted trees
Conjunctions to dampen the spirit
Verbs now skulk like foam
Against sandbags
Articles settle like silt
Coating our basements
Boots stamp meaningless sentences
Across kitchen floors
We are overwhelmed,
Unsure how to begin to clean
Plucking up a Yearning here, a Flighty there
Is. Gorgeous. Behave. All in the dumpster.
Adjectives to scrub away before
They mold
This is the great flood
Infamous, demanding recovery
A sorting out of lost from gained
I am too busy now
To think of
The work to come
I spend the day in a dingy, fingers numb
With a butterfly net and red bucket
Raking them in
-Anna
-Anna
Anna, And here I thought words just poured out of you in perfectly formed phrases and paragraphs... I like this poem and metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI have found this blog helpful, but since it hasn't been active lately I stopped posting and checking it. Now that I know it will be active I will start hanging out here again. I haven't been doing much writing, but this may help get me back in the saddle. Thanks.
By the way, concerning your comment about "all acquaintance be forgot..." I believe it's "auld acquaintance,"--"auld" being an archaic Scottish (I think) term for "old." Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. Still, the sentiment does seem strange. Maybe I should google it. Now I'm curious.
Well, just looked up "Auld Lang Syne," and the sentiment is about not forgetting your old acquaintances, but offering a cup of kindness to them and the old long ago, or the old days. I think I knew this, but spaced it out.
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