Crystal Fulp
Cooper
CRWR 212Y
3/13/14
Wild
Freedom
As I walk through the
forest a sense of freedom envelops me like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s
night. Everywhere I turn I see trees growing wherever they like and vegetation
so vibrantly wild that it hurts my eyes. It’s almost too much to bear.
The further I walk the
wilder it gets. There is no rhyme or reason here. There are no cubicles in
small, tidy rows. There are no phones ringing or people begging for attention
that you can’t give. There are no sexual harassment seminars or homework
assignments. There are no professors or bosses piling things on that you just
can’t handle. No, there is none of that.
What lives within the
forest is the stuff of dreams and nightmares. It’s as beautiful as seeing a
shooting star streaking across the inky, nighttime sky and just as
unattainable. No, you can’t catch what lives in the forest. It dwells in its
home completely disconnected from the world around it. After all, it has no
place in the modern world.
What lives in the middle
of an otherwise abandoned forest is silence, peace, and the sweet, exquisite
pain of total freedom. Only there can you claim a taste of such sweet torture.
The silence and peace calms you while the freedom invigorates you and forces you
to contemplate what could be if you could just escape. Time seems to stand
still as it catapults forward. You wish you could live forever in such sweet
serenity, but before too long the slimy, diseased tentacles of society come
looking for you. They shatter the peace and serenity as if it were a mirror.
You’re left standing amid wreckage. You are powerless as the tentacles trap you
and drag you back into a world of bosses, professors, tiny cubicles, sexual
harassment seminars, homework, and constantly ringing phones. All you can do is
catch one last, fleeting glance at the wild freedom before it’s gone.
12 comments:
Hi Crystal,
Though I love the opening, I'm wondering about logistics. Your simile, though beautiful, is perhaps contradictory. Is being wrapped in a blanket, restricted like that, freeing? Like I said, it's beautiful but I'm just wondering if there's a better way of exploring that concept.
I love that you touch upon the randomness, the sheer lack or coordination in nature, that it exists freely, rampantly, independently from our human constraints.
Is there any value in breaking the lines to emphasize certain lines, making this more poetry than prose?
What an image: " inky, nighttime sky" so beautiful.
I'm intrigued by "the sweet, exquisite pain of total freedom". You have this way about your writing, Crystal, that you tend to drop these little jewels inside your work that keep us wondering, theorizing meaning and intention. What is the pain of total freedom? Why is it painful? Why total? I'm so enthralled by this notion.
And then you give us lines like: "the slimy, diseased tentacles of society" which force us to consider again the inky night sky, but just the many arms/responsibilities of the real world.
This piece is simultaneously beautiful and inspiring, yet sad and dismal. But I think there is that in life, a mixture of dichotomous emotion and expectation.
Well done!
Prof. Cooper
This is such as melancholy, beautiful piece, Crystal. It reminds me of the anticipation of summer vacation but much darker. Your use of metaphor with the line "They shatter the peace and serenity as if it were a mirror" is especially compelling, since it's like a version of yourself was destroyed by the unpleasantness of society. I like that this ties into your use of imagery with the shooting star, since breaks between the stressors of life are few and far between. The setting of this piece is also intriguing, since it could be both literal and figurative. The nighttime forest is intimidating in a literal sense, but there are also darker periods in life that are difficult to get out of, as if life has become like a forest. Lovely work!
Great work, I can get an image of the theme you are trying to relay. However, I would try changing the perspective by inviting the reader into the setting to convey the theme and tone differently. For example, in the beginning describe the forest in a way that invokes feeling. Such as: I walk through a thicket of thorny red blend, wiry grasses, and snarky branches. Then go on to use your comparison, in the same manor. It will allow the reader to feel what you’re feeling. However, based on the poems I have read most of the students including me can relate to this work. I would just try a different approach, but maybe that is the bold unsaturated tone you were going for?
Thanks for sharing,
Jason Faulkner
Hi Crystal,
You know I'm a nature freak from the poems I've written before, so your work this week really touched me. I liked the mix of both figurative and literal language intermixed throughout the piece. Your imagery and alliteration in "shooting star streaking across the inky sky" is captivating. I think by describing the solitude one finds in nature as "sweet, exquisite pain of total freedom" captures the longing to spend more time in such beauty without social constraints upon us, and the internal conflict we have of knowing we can visit such a place, but are limited on how much time we can spend there because we do have jobs/school/life to deal with elsewhere. Really nice work.
Denise Bateman
I liked your piece this week Crystal! Your theme of wildness and freedom really appeal to the reader and made your imagery more vivid and exciting with the wild life. I love how you use your diction to make your readers question if there is an alternate meaning behind your words. Is freedom really freedom? Your point of view in this piece seems distant but also compassionate towards nature and I really enjoy that about it. Your writing is wonderful and I can't wait to read more from you.
Hi Crystal,
Your piece seams to be very eye opening and very beautiful through the use of your imagery. I like the simile that you incorporated into the beginning of the piece. I like how the "sense of freedom" is described to be "like a warm blanket on a cold winter night", almost like stating that the freedom is comforting and provide a sense of warmth and happiness. The tone of your poem seamed to be very powerful. I also like the juxtapositions that you incorporate into your work such as "sweet torture", making this work more interesting. Very good job!
Deyanira Bustos
Hi Crystal,
Your piece seams to be very eye opening and very beautiful through the use of your imagery. I like the simile that you incorporated into the beginning of the piece. I like how the "sense of freedom" is described to be "like a warm blanket on a cold winter night", almost like stating that the freedom is comforting and provide a sense of warmth and happiness. The tone of your poem seamed to be very powerful. I also like the juxtapositions that you incorporate into your work such as "sweet torture", making this work more interesting. Very good job!
Deyanira Bustos
Hi Crystal,
Your piece seams to be very eye opening and very beautiful through the use of your imagery. I like the simile that you incorporated into the beginning of the piece. I like how the "sense of freedom" is described to be "like a warm blanket on a cold winter night", almost like stating that the freedom is comforting and provide a sense of warmth and happiness. The tone of your poem seamed to be very powerful. I also like the juxtapositions that you incorporate into your work such as "sweet torture", making this work more interesting. Very good job!
Deyanira Bustos
This piece starts with a simile to give us a quick comparison to get our imagination going. You compare the warmth of nature to a blanket to show the readers that comfort the speaker feels when entering this new environment. Then the poem goes onto describe an office setting to juxtapose it to a more free and natural setting. We see how the nature gives the speaker an easier feeling. We also see a change in tone. We see a constant change between the freedom of forest to a place where danger exists. We see that this freedom in the forest can also lead to danger.
--Monique Ahmad
Crystal,
I thought this was a lovely piece. I very much loved the form of your poem.
I liked that you opened it up with a simile in the first stanza. Then you go right into some wonderful imagery with "…vegetation so vibrantly wild that it hurts my eyes." I thought that was nicely done.
But my favorite part of your piece was the theme. I loved that you touched on what we talked about in class. The modern world clashing with nature, and what that means for how we connect to nature.
I liked the image of tentacles trapping and dragging us back to responsibilities, and less than fun things in the modern world.
Great job!
Crystal,
This was really beautiful. Your title really grabbed the reader and made the imagery seem so bold. I liked the theme, how our modern world and nature clash so much. The simile at the beginning was also a great way to capture the reader's attention. Great job!
Rebecca
Crystal,
I think it was very unique and interesting how you took such a dark approach to nature. I feel like this piece was sort of dream-like, a nightmare or something, especially with the beginning of this piece describing a blanket. I also feel like there is something mystical about this piece, like a fairy-tale, especially when you wrote this: "No, you can’t catch what lives in the forest. It dwells in its home completely disconnected from the world around it." I really appreciate your interesting and almost envious outlook on the freedom of nature. I feel like you're partially criticizing mankind in how we are never able to achieve true freedom or know what is really in the forest. But at the same time, I feel like you are also criticizing nature and its lack of order because you feel more comfortable in the urban world? But at the same time, you also criticize this. Overall, I felt tugged in many different directions about your message in this piece. I feel like you were definitely trying to put a strong meaning in this piece, but I'm sort of lost as to which direction you meant to go in.
Claire Smithers
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