|
|
WebSlam VIII – Round 1
Prompts
Submissions are closed for Round 1.
Students responded to the following prompts for Round 1. Scroll down to read their work.
- Write a poem that involves one of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste
- Write a poem that features sunlight, moonlight or artificial light
- Write a poem that describes how a person looks, avoiding value-laden words such as “pretty,” “handsome,” etc.
Poems
Tha’wa’atch
Jennifer Abeita — Santa Fe Indian School
rhinored72@yahoo.com
The final tinge of orange
swallowed by shadows
crooks and crannies
of old, dead trees
cease to be graced
by the presence of leaves
now harbor blinking, beady eyes
that settle in and occupy
those tight spaces.
Overhead, a familiar orb
begins her trek across
the inky blot of expansion
Radiating her pallid divinity.
The wind is her voice
whispering invocations
willing her luminosity
to grow brighter
to linger longer
than a faint Memory
for her faithful successor.
Breezy prayers
offer guidance
in permeating darkness
she nears the horizontal ending
of her nocturnal journey
and whispers one last time,
“Nai’tr’aa,” Thank you.
|
|
Reviewer:
|
Rebecca Seiferle, seiferle@yahoo.com
|
|
Rating:
|
8.2
|
|
Review:
|
Jennifer, this is an interesting poetic evocation of the moon, and I like that
“pallid divinity,” “the inky blot of expansion,” the way you say “horizontal ending” to suggest the moon’s descent from the sky. There’s a kind of darker tone here, in the “old, dead trees’ and “blinking, beady eyes,” that suggest a kind of threat, as if the moon were on a somewhat dangerous journey, to which, having been made safely, the ‘Thank you” at the end responds. But there are moments of explaining, where the language becomes more general. I think the third stanza could probably end after “to linger longer,” and the last stanza could begin with “she nears the horizontal ending/of her nocturnal journey.” There’s a unique perception and feeling for the moon in your poem and the lines “faint Memory/for her faithful successor” and “prayers offer guidance,” seem more familiar and predictable.
|
|
|
Posted: Nov/5/2006 5:35 pm
|
|
|
Reviewer:
|
Ryk Martinez, sykscript@hotmail.com
|
|
Rating:
|
9.1
|
|
Review:
|
I really like this poem. It is very hard to create emotion in a poem and also be so abstract. I can tell this poem is rooted in your culture, but one does not have to understand that to “get” your poem.
|
|
|
Posted: Nov/5/2006 10:00 pm
|
|
|
