Category: Craft

Writing Communities

1-writingIt pains me to think that some people finish their education and never read another book. Words have woven themselves so deeply into my life. If I stopped reading and writing I wouldn’t be myself anymore. It would be like reincarnation.I don’t know who I would become.

Lately, I’ve been telling myself this quote a lot: “Dream big, work hard, stay focused, and surround yourself with good people.” Right now my classmates and I share a common goal to work hard and focus on becoming better writers. A community like this should never be taken for granted. It should be appreciated completely.

Pretty soon, I will graduate from high school, and perhaps, I will never see some of these amazing people again. My creative writing class has become a family. Writing reveals such intimate, personal parts of ourselves, and over the past four years, my classmates have come to understand, accept and love each other. It takes a lot to create a community as strong as the one we currently have.

It’s strange to think where we’ll all be ten years from now. Which of us will stay writers? Which of us will get married, have kids, or live somewhere other than Jacksonville?

Maybe our decisions will not only surprise others, but ourselves. I’m such a calender, plan oriented person. Maybe I will make a decision and forget who I am. Maybe the person I will become will be better than the person I am now.

I can’t believe that all of the years of learning, workshopping, and critiquing are almost over at Douglas Anderson.Whoever the members of my class become, we will always know each other within the experiences of our pasts.

I can’t ignore the power of having other writers in my life. People influence each other. I want to stay connected with other writers. Being with other writers creates an even stronger desire to create an art with words.

I will forever try finding other writers to connect with. The power of a writing community creates incredible bonds and paves pathways for improvement.

In the future, the worst thing that could happen to me is that I would wake up one morning and realize I never pursued my passion.

My life is all about the people I surround myself with. Graduation, the summer, and the start of college will really test me. Staying connected sounds like a good plan, but people drift, and meeting new people and making connections takes a leap of courage.

For right now, I’m going to appreciate every moment I have with this writing community. We’re all different and come from different areas of Jacksonville but we cam together for one thing. The love and support a group of strangers can create when they come together is powerful. I can’t say thank you enough for my experiences here at Douglas Anderson with my teachers and peers, who have become my writing family.

-Kat Roland, Art Editor

Poetry

cover-65-54c54763e0833Poetry has always marveled me with its ability to craft words together and create magic on a page. The power present in and between words, hidden in the white space and embedded in the title astonishes me every time. I have found strength in the confined space of a poem, and this art form has taught me more lessons than simply what is seen on the page.

Enjambment helped me overcome boundaries. Forced me to take leaps and surprise myself. Titles taught me to take control. Meter gave me a voice in its melody. Listening to my whispers amidst the commotion of life. Hyperboles warned me not to take things too seriously. Metaphors took me deeper. Forced me to understand all sides of a story. Taught me to explore the mind. Ambiguity allowed me to keep things to myself, to have secrets. Symbolism changed the way I viewed minuscule details. Suddenly nothing felt insignificant. Imagery gave me colors and instructed me to paint. Images awakened my world. Sensory details found their way around my body, hiding under my tongue and deep in my ears, becoming a part of me.

Poetry has given me a different outlet for expression, one where I challenge myself to understand my own perceptions. It has pushed me to understand the origins, implications and the underlying details. Poetry has transformed my process of thinking and has inevitably affected the way I respond to the world.

For the beauty it holds, and the power it has given me, I am incredibly grateful for the art of poetry.

-Briana Lopez, Junior Social Media Editor 

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most beautiful.”

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most beautiful.” -Rita Dove

For much of the Élan staff, Poetry is more than just a reading genre; it is more than just a subject in school. It is expressing the inexpressible, finding the humanity and in humanity of things; it is the sharing of our most intimate parts and pieces.

April is National Poetry Month, and in the interest of getting right to the point: we couldn’t be more excited. To kick off the celebration, we as a staff have compiled a list of some of our favorite poems.

Click the title to read the rest of the piece.

a song in the front yard

By Gwendolyn Brooks

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
By Major Jackson
It doesn’t matter if you can’t see
Steve’s 1985 Corvette: Turquoise-colored,
Plush purple seats, gold-trimmed
Rims that make little stars in your eyes
By Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work.
 By Jack Gilbert
The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night,
between the liver and the stomach. Comes to the heart
and hesitates. Considers and then goes around it.
Trying to escape the mildness of our violent world.

I Remember You As You Were

by Pablo Neruda
I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
You were the grey beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Our Valley

By Philip Levine

We don’t see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.
Praise the restless beds
Praise the beds that do not adjust
     that won’t lift the head to feed
     or lower for shots
     or blood
     or raise to watch the tinny TV
Last night I found my face below
the water in my cupped hands.
The mask made of copper and bone
criss-crossing to make a smirk,
 

Medusa

by Sylvia Plath
Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea’s incoherences,
You house your unnerving head—God-ball,
Lens of mercies,