Ash Friday
Foreword: So I made this a while ago for one of my lessons. I was modeling for my students this technique called “found poetry” where you essentially take something – anything, e.g. a news article, bumper stickers, a cereal box, whatever – and find a poem within it. You can black parts out so you leave behind a poem or you can pull words and phrases out of it and use them in a poem. So I had my kids do this and I showed them this poem that I made the night before as an example. It was “found” out of 3 short articles on the firebombing of Dresden (we were reading Slaughterhouse Five), but it ended up being about Black Friday, which… well… being soon/now seems appropriate to post up. And if you were curious, my three AP classes really enjoyed the found poetry exercise.
Vital signs: the beat of feet trudging rhythmically on.
We’re piled up in houses at the end of city blocks,
waiting to step through those big doors.
There’s the dull whine of public morale rising as time ticks down.
Air raid sirens wind up and glass automatic doors open hungrily.
It’s a fire sale! A downright incendiary sale!
In crowds we scream and gesticulate as the tide of people surge inward.
Bundled hands claw forward and booted feet march on -
“mere acts of terror and wanton destruction.”
We leave the aisles barren, the store uninhabitable.
The weak and feeble – charred corpses – trampled underfoot.
Happy Black Friday. For some, it’s more like Ash Wednesday.
Post Script: I really don’t like a few of the wordings, but hey, I made it in 20 minutes the night before the lesson. There’s a point where it’s good enough to get by. Happy Black Friday.
