Friday, June 27, 2014

I am alive!

Holy cow. It has been FOREVER since I last posted! I've been working on a blog post, but (and I even said this in that post) nothing I say seems to matter. But today I wrote something that I think might matter.
I found a scholarship from 1-800 Wheelchairs about overcoming adversity. My life has been a cakewalk compared to some people, but writing a 500 word poem about the last year of my life for money didn't sound too bad. I cranked this bad boy out as fast as my fingers could write, then tweaked it as I typed. I thought I'd try it out on you guys before I submit it. Any and all input is appreciated! Enjoy!

Crash by Shalyn Holloway

“I'm a good driver,” I tell him.
That's when I lose control
The car slides sideways,
Hits the concrete,
And sends me rolling.
My car rolls through the air and down the road
Caught by two trees
That save me from falling to my death.
Ow.
My arm beneath me,
My car above me,
I scream for my life.
Help comes finally,
The Jaws of Life push the car from my lap.
My head is bleeding,
My arm lies limp,
Pain is everywhere.
But I'm alive.
The ambulance ride to the hospital,
15 miles away,
Is the longest ride of my life.
It's 3am,
And I just want sleep,
But they make me open my eyes.
They life-flight me to Lincoln,
Where my mom and dad meet me.
Somehow I never cried,
Not one tear.
I awake after surgery,
On a hospital bed.
“We shaved your head,” they say.
My arm is bionic,
My hip is cracked,
My head is bald,
But I'm alive.
Hour upon hour,
Day after day,
Week after week
Therapy is grueling.
Stretching, scraping, building muscles back.
My hand still limp
My nerves are damaged.
They only repair themselves,
A millimeter a day.
School is the last thing I want to do,
But I do it anyway.
I find out who my friends are,
The Peru Crew always by my side.
I begin to get better.
My hair grows,
My scars heal,
My bruises fade,
My hip mends.
I walk for the first time in months,
With tears in my eyes.
I get to loose the braces one by one
Until the doctor says I'm healed.
Back to school I go!
Bogged down with 21 credit hours,
As a freshman.
The load so intense,
I'm driven to tears daily.
But I'm alive.
I spend a lot of time wishing I wasn't.
But that's just the bipolar talking.
I make lists to remind me,
Just how precious life is.
I think of the crash,
And how I survived against the odds.
I should be dead,
But I'm alive.
I think of all the time I've put into getting better
And what a waste it would be if I gave up now.
I think of my family,
My friends,
My best friend, Jacob.
I decide life is worth it,
So I stick around
And I keep fighting.
Against myself,
Against my body,
Against the odds.
Because I am alive.
I dream of my future,
To keep me going forward.
I dream I'm on the East coast,
In a museum,
With my little family.
We go to the beach,
My toes wiggling in the water,
My husband by my side.
Because I am alive.

And I have overcome.

3 comments:

  1. Part 1:

    Yo gurl nice to see you tryin out some poet type stuffs

    First of all, left align it. Poetry these days isn't usually center aligned, and it's kind of hard to read it when it is (for me, anyway). Also, capitalize it like you would prose. Modern poetry doesn't usually have the first letter of every line capitalized, though that's your choice on that one.

    Second of all, you tell us what happens with great detail, which is a good start. However, I don't think this would be classified as a poem if it was not broken up into lines. The key thing here is to show and not tell. You tell us what happens, with great detail, yes, but showing involves invoking an emotional response from the reader, and to someone who doesn't know you, this wouldn't have provoked a very strong emotional response. Sympathy? Yes. Empathy? We'll get there.

    Showing and not telling is a difficult thing to understand at first. Generally, it involves metaphor. But don't say "I went through Hell" or something like that-- use metaphors and similes that readers can identify with. No one can identify with literally going through Hell because last time I checked everyone that's anyone is alive. Also, that's a cliche. Avoid those. But you probably knew that already. Why don't we experiment a little bit with metaphor?

    "On a hospital bed." Now, you have a lot of other lines that are a lot more important than this one, but this is just for an example. Hospital beds. What do we think of them? The reader reads "hospital beds" and thinks of one, but they don't think of how that would feel to wake up in one. Ja feel? As a poet, you have to direct the reader's senses to feel what you want to get across. So how did that feel to you waking up in that hospital bed? Was it frightening? Confusing? I've never had this particular experience, but if it were me, I would probably feel scared. So let's look at how to convey fear through description and metaphor.

    I awaken after surgery,
    the bland colors of the hospital bedroom
    and iron trap of a bed
    did nothing to quell my panic.

    We had to add a couple of lines here, but if you follow my next suggestion, that won't be an issue. Now, I'm not suggesting that you use that section in your poem. I'm just giving you an example; put your own emotions into the metaphor. Think of what things remind you of. Don't be afraid to make comparisons, even if they sound weird to you! It might make the reader think in a new way, and thus enjoy the poem further.

    While repetition is a poetic device, and you use it quite well in this piece, I feel that there is a bit of redundancy. A good rule of thumb is to try not to start any lines with the same word. In this poem, you start a lot of your lines with "my" and "I". This is an easy pattern to fall into, especially when writing in the first person. However, you can say what you need to in a lot fewer words if you rearrange a little bit, thus leaving more room for the previous suggestion.
    You start 18 lines with my, and 17 with I (or I'm, but that's a contraction of "I am," so I'm counting it XD). So how do we rearrange this? Let's look at a "me" heavy section.

    "My arm is bionic,
    My hip is cracked,
    My head is bald,
    But I'm alive."

    I really like the "I'm alive" repetition throughout the poem, so don't touch that. However, the repetition of the simple sentence structure, "my ___ is ____" gets a little stale. I like your use of diverse vocabulary to describe what's going on here, but it needs a little more/less (less is more). Instead of saying that, let's fit all your descriptions into something that isn't quite as stale.

    Bald, now, and cracked,
    I flex my bionic arm, hip aching--
    But I am alive.

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  2. Part 2:

    While that example still has I starting one of the lines, it's much more varied in the structure, making it more interesting to read. Again, that's only an example-- try to find your own way of saying it, but if you use this one, I really did just rearrange it for you. :) So every time you see that you've fallen into a pattern at some point, try rearranging the sentence structure a little. It'll also help with the showing and not telling.

    I suggest you break this into cantos, or at least stanzas. Right now, it's a big, intimidating block of text. Breaking it up will make it more manageable. Cantos are sections of poems that are marked with roman numerals. Within the cantos, there can be stanzas. I suggest this because you move in chronological order throughout your experience, and while breaking each one of these into its own stanza would be more helpful than not doing anything, I think that the sections could be broken up even further. If you divide it into cantos, that will give you more freedom to work with stanzas within them. If you have questions about that, message me. I have no clue if I explained that well enough. XD

    All right, friend, now that I've got all the general stuff covered, I'll help you with the nitpicky things.

    "That's when I lose control" Try to avoid starting lines with "that" or "its" or anything like that. Not only does it sometimes cause confusion, but it just feels wrong. Gives me the heebee jeebies.

    "Ow." Take this out. It's not needed, as you explain your pain later. If you're trying to convey the strange fog that you feel when you don't quite know what's happened, try to explain it further. That one word doesn't really do anything.

    "The Jaws of Life push the car from my lap." I know that that's actually what happened, but it sounds a little bit like a commercial for The Jaws of Life here. Maybe not mention that explicitly. Also, try to stay in the moment. I don't know about you, but I don't think that I would be noticing how they were lifting the car off of me. So I would say something more along the lines of "the car is gone now, by some power or another." Basically, focus on the fact that you're no longer trapped rather than the fact that the Jaws of Life did it for you. Unless you noticed it. Then make a big deal of the notice.

    "Pain is everywhere." But what does that mean to the reader? Be a bit more specific, as everywhere is a bit vague. Is the pain coming from everywhere outside? Or is it everywhere in your body?

    "Is the longest ride of my life." *sirens go off* Cliche alert! Find a different way to say this, as I've heard it used many, many times before. The danger in cliches is that the reader has heard them so many times that it no longer produces any emotional/imaginative response to the phrase.

    "And I just want sleep," my body aches for a metaphor or simile here.

    "They life-flight me to Lincoln," Again, make sure you stay in the moment. Describe it as you might have if you were in that state. Did the paramedics tell you that you had to go to Lincoln? Perhaps describe them strapping you into the helicopter. Also, try to avoid using words like "they" to start a line.

    "Somehow I never cried,
    Not one tear."
    If this is important for you to keep here, make it more significant. I can feel that it's important, but it needs a little more. Or rather! Oh! Okay, I know what we need to do. So the second line tends toward redundancy, which weakens the impact of the first line. What you should do is make that one line, like this: "Somehow, I never shed a tear." That takes out all the redundancy completely.

    "“We shaved your head,” they say." Good. In the moment. But who is they? Try to avoid using it, as it can cause confusion, especially in poetry.

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  3. "Hour upon hour,
    Day after day,
    Week after week"
    This doesn't really do much to help the poem. When you only have 500 words to work with, you have to decide what to take out and keep in. If you're going to try describing a bit more, this would be something to take out, as it takes up space here.

    "They only repair themselves,
    A millimeter a day." I love this part! But you don't need a comma after the first line. It's just like normal prose grammar-- if a sentence doesn't need a comma in the place you've put it, you don't need one there. I'll get to the rest of the commas in a second.

    "School is the last thing I want to do,
    But I do it anyway." There's an opportunity for metaphor and simile here.

    "The Peru Crew always by my side." That's nice, but who is going to be reading this poem? Are they going to know who The Peru Crew is, or care about who they are? Also, are you allowed to have your school name in the poem (is it a blind reading)? Make sure you look at the guidelines before you ship this out :)

    "I begin to get better." Throughout the poem, you seem to have a bit of an essay approach. I totally understand, as that can be a really effective way to do things in other types of literature, but in poetry, where less is more and every word counts, a thesis and supporting details often don't work as well. Here, and after this line, you use this approach. Try taking out the "thesis" and leaving in the details. That's what really matters in poetry, anyway.

    "I get to loose the braces one by one" While both words work here, did you mean "loose" as in loosen, like shoelaces, or "lose" as in abandon? If you describe further, I think loose would work better here, as you're literally loosening them.

    "The load so intense,
    I'm driven to tears daily.
    As if this isn't hard enough,
    I'm thrown into bipolar mood swings."
    This part (omg I almost typed "fart") is particularly prose-y feeling. The second two lines feel like you're just chatting it up with a friend. "And if THAT's not bad enough..." Ja feel? Try to keep the casual tone a little more under wraps, as it can make poetry feel more like prose than it should.

    "Outrageously happy one moment,
    Deeply depressed the next."
    Nice opportunity for metaphor and simile here. Describe the happiness and depression. I want to know what they feel like, too.

    I really like your descriptions of the future at the end. They have just the right amount of detail. However, "And I have overcome" feels a little tacked on. If you need it for the scholarship entry, leave it in, but if not, I suggest you take it out. "Because I am alive" would be a lovely ending to the poem, as you've used it repetitiously through the poem. If you need to keep it in there, add it to the main body of the stanza, as it's floating off into space right now.

    "I think of the crash," Instead of saying "I [verb] of [noun]," start with the noun and then describe it. That makes the reader feel more at one with your thoughts, as you bring the attention off of the narrator and onto the idea. No one thinks, "I am thinking of a cat that is orange", they just think, "the cat is orange", if that makes sense.

    The following lines do not need commas at the end of them:
    "The ambulance ride to the hospital,"
    "15 miles away,"
    "I awake after surgery,"
    "They only repair themselves,"
    "I find out who my friends are,"
    "I walk for the first time in months,"
    "Bogged down with 21 credit hours,"
    "I make lists to remind me"
    "I dream of my future,"

    There you go! If you have any questions, message me. I think I covered everything.
    -Debbie

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