We begin the last full week of National Poetry Month with Day 24. Yesterday's poem was so hard, really, and I'm glad for something a little easier today. Maureen Thorson suggests a poem about masonry: "a poem that features walls, bricks, stones, arches, or the like. If that sounds a bit hard, remember that one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems was about a wall" (NaPoWriMo). Robert Lee Brewer's prompt is: "take the phrase 'Tell It to the (blank),' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem"(Poetic Asides). On the University of Northern Iowa campus, we — the Languages and Literatures department — moved recently from our long-standing home, Baker Hall. I had my office in that building for almost twenty years. After we left Baker Hall, the university demolished it; in its place will be a "green space," whatever that means. I'm hoping for a little lake. Here are some pictures of the Baker Hall demolition, courtesy of UNI's Rod Library. Merging Maureen's and Robert's prompts again today. After the Baker walls were through a tumblin', I got a chunk of masonry from the rubble. Baker had brick walls with an interesting texture, and you can see that on the chunk I picked up, pictured below. Tell It to the Brick And now moving to Alan's Day 24 poem, here's his set-up: "I am attempting to follow both Robert's and Maureen's prompts today." I'm glad both Alan and I are mashing up the two "official" prompts. Tell It to the Block Wall Buckling East Alan, you've written a powerful testament to humans' hubris against powerful natural forces. We think we can best nature, but instead we end up more like Percy Bysshe Shelley's King Ozymandias, whose huge statue lies tumbled and broken in the Egyptian waste: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk, a shattered visage lies," nothing but "that colossal wreck, boundless and bare." Bravura work, my friend. Won't you comment, please, friends? To make a comment, look for a blue link below that says Post a comment and click it once. If you don't see that, look in the red line that starts Posted by Vince, then find the word comments and click it once. Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
Yellow Roses
4 hours ago
2 comments:
Vince, do you mourn the demolition of a building where you've worked?
I enjoyed your post. I graduated from UNI with a Spanish major and Portuguese minor in '92. I spent a lot of time on the third floor of that great old building.
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