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Once again, my creative writing ASSHOLE professor strikes again. Our latest assignment is was a free-write open poem that had to have an intentional form. Then we had to have a consultation with him so he could proof it before we turn in a final copy. This is what I came up with:
Here at Home
Bombs are raining from the sky,
diving to the earth.
Wars are raging through the world,
in every nation.
Famine plagues the population
in every empire.
Clean water cannot be found
in rivers, lakes, streams.
But here at home
all is as should be:
Boys and men kill each other
for any reason.
They seek to destroy themselves
to not be destroyed.
Women, young girls starve themselves
to look too perfect.
They cry crystal tears that crack
their perfect faces.
Elsewhere things are horrible,
as we have been told.
Everywhere else things are bad;
we should feel lucky.
But here at home
all is as should be.
I'm not going to be all pretentious about this, because I'm not like that. But, there are many intentional aspects of this poem. Number one being the form. The first and second stanzas are seperated as a representation of the farness of outside-world horrors when compared with our own. I also deliberatly left many vague passages for the same reason, so that these things we don't think of are further abstract ideas - they're not concrete because we are not experiencing them. There is also delibrate contradiction. The meter of the poem, itself, is a contradiciton - alternating 7 and 5 syllabic lines shows how uneven our lives, the world, and our ideas are. The passages themselves contradictions. For example, in the second stanza: "They seek to destroy themselves / to not be destroyed." This is a deliberate contradiction, as well as delibrate vagueness.
His comments read that this piece is too vague, that it's not saying anything important, and that it's overall "ambitious but unrealized." These are his...nicer...comments.
My dilema is that the final copy is due tomorrow, and I can't change it. I don't want to change it. I like the piece the way it is, and to change it would be to change the intention/context of it.
Edit: I have reconfigured it, as such:
Here at Home
Bombs are raining from the sky,
diving to the earth –
Asia, Mid-East, Africa –
their people cry out.
Wars are raging through the world,
in every nation.
Women, men, children are killed
for sport and power.
Famine plagues the population
in vast empires.
Where once food was plentiful,
there rests only sand.
Fresh water too hard to find
though so much is near.
This is the world outside ours.
Yet here at home
all is as should be:
Boys and men kill each other
for money, power.
With slick knives of jagged steel
they slash their brother.
In rage, with modern muskets
they spill guiltless blood.
They seek to destroy themselves,
so not be destroyed.
Women, young girls, starve themselves
to look too perfect.
Glossy photos of film stars
mock them from covers
of magazines they covet
so desperately.
They cry crystal tears that crack
their perfect faces.
Their pain screams so silently,
like a muffled shot.
No one hears their cries because
no one wants to know.
Young men, scarcely more than boys,
die from a disease
that no one admits exists,
though all are at risk.
Fathers and mothers torture
themselves to survive –
they ask: what’s the point of life
when you can’t live it?
With no money, there’s no life
in this land of gold.
Yet here at home
all is as should be.
Here at Home
Bombs are raining from the sky,
diving to the earth.
Wars are raging through the world,
in every nation.
Famine plagues the population
in every empire.
Clean water cannot be found
in rivers, lakes, streams.
But here at home
all is as should be:
Boys and men kill each other
for any reason.
They seek to destroy themselves
to not be destroyed.
Women, young girls starve themselves
to look too perfect.
They cry crystal tears that crack
their perfect faces.
Elsewhere things are horrible,
as we have been told.
Everywhere else things are bad;
we should feel lucky.
But here at home
all is as should be.
I'm not going to be all pretentious about this, because I'm not like that. But, there are many intentional aspects of this poem. Number one being the form. The first and second stanzas are seperated as a representation of the farness of outside-world horrors when compared with our own. I also deliberatly left many vague passages for the same reason, so that these things we don't think of are further abstract ideas - they're not concrete because we are not experiencing them. There is also delibrate contradiction. The meter of the poem, itself, is a contradiciton - alternating 7 and 5 syllabic lines shows how uneven our lives, the world, and our ideas are. The passages themselves contradictions. For example, in the second stanza: "They seek to destroy themselves / to not be destroyed." This is a deliberate contradiction, as well as delibrate vagueness.
His comments read that this piece is too vague, that it's not saying anything important, and that it's overall "ambitious but unrealized." These are his...nicer...comments.
Edit: I have reconfigured it, as such:
Here at Home
Bombs are raining from the sky,
diving to the earth –
Asia, Mid-East, Africa –
their people cry out.
Wars are raging through the world,
in every nation.
Women, men, children are killed
for sport and power.
Famine plagues the population
in vast empires.
Where once food was plentiful,
there rests only sand.
Fresh water too hard to find
though so much is near.
This is the world outside ours.
Yet here at home
all is as should be:
Boys and men kill each other
for money, power.
With slick knives of jagged steel
they slash their brother.
In rage, with modern muskets
they spill guiltless blood.
They seek to destroy themselves,
so not be destroyed.
Women, young girls, starve themselves
to look too perfect.
Glossy photos of film stars
mock them from covers
of magazines they covet
so desperately.
They cry crystal tears that crack
their perfect faces.
Their pain screams so silently,
like a muffled shot.
No one hears their cries because
no one wants to know.
Young men, scarcely more than boys,
die from a disease
that no one admits exists,
though all are at risk.
Fathers and mothers torture
themselves to survive –
they ask: what’s the point of life
when you can’t live it?
With no money, there’s no life
in this land of gold.
Yet here at home
all is as should be.
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