Two assignments for my Intro to Creative Writing class here at UNC-W.
Assignment 1 - We were asked to respond with a poem to this painting: http://anagramseverywhere.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/hopperny-movie.jpg
“Painting Poetry”
His hateful words had chased her from her seat,
and snapping and snarling, they burned her ears.
She cowered now, their prey, with her back pressed against the wall.
A frown bruises her delicate features
as the sharp edge of the wood-paneled wall presses itself against the small of her back.
Deserving, she revels in the pain for an instant,
hyper-aware of the wall edging itself into the delicate space between her vertebrae.
The lamp above her drenches her face in light,
the yellow glow shining gold on her limp hair.
It might have looked angelic.
Gripped in her left hand is a tightly-rolled playbill,
the sweat from her palm softening the papery creases.
She clenches it tighter,
and feels it give way beneath her fist with only a rustle of protest.
She buttons her woolen blue coat to her neck,
and the dampened hem nudges her exposed ankles
like a mangy cat.
Assignment 2 - Here we were asked to create a poem writing about someone who has influenced our view of ourselves / world view / philosophy, drawing upon specific conversations and recalling their words. The style is an homage to this poem: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2003/09/30
“What She Told Me”
I will tell you what she told me
with her gentle hands alit on my heaving shoulders
those two cool reminders that this wasn’t the end
it’s been worse, she whispered
you’ll get through this
we’ll get through this, we always do, her shaking voice said
maybe to convince herself more than anything
that still night the world stopped spinning
and the air tasted thinner and didn’t satisfy our hungry lungs
and nothing moved in a huge house,
but no one noticed the ear-splitting silence
a heaviness so foreign to us loitered in our space
bearing down and making my skin tingle and my insides squirm
like worms in a bucket, wriggling to be free from a place too crowded
but her warm chocolate eyes invited me back
with an insistence that was motherly
in the way that I needed
I wouldn’t be here without you, I croaked
through cracked lips that I couldn’t quit chewing
and I’d never meant it more.
Interesting, certainly. Enjoy?
Love and light,
S-
