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Authors: Jenny Hubbard
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wasn’t very coordinated and got cut from the first round of the freshman team tryouts. He was the only freshman who made the varsity squad, and I couldn’t help but wonder, out of all the guys in the class, why Glenn had chosen me.
And then, at the end of our sophomore year, Glenn didn’t ask me to be his roommate, and he turned into someone I didn’t know as well as I thought I did. I honestly believe that if Glenn hadn’t roomed with Thomas, Thomas would still be alive.
Is Male, No Middle Name, No Roman Numerals, Class of 1984
Once a blank slate; now an above-average student from a broken family. Lives with father, son of German immigrants, in a town you’ve never heard of (Black Mountain) in an A-frame house hidden from the road. Will attend a state-supported university (but probably not the one where his father teaches) and will be considered a man of mystery by the coeds because of his seldom-seen dimple. Will go down in the record books as agreeing to The Plan because friendship is more important than romance. Will go down in the record books as being responsible for his friend Thomas Broughton’s death. Is Male could have saved Thomas, maybe, if Is Male hadn’t been goofing around in the water. Is Male had worked as a lifeguard the summer before at a camp, where he’d earned extramoney by cleaning the mess hall and the bathrooms. Is Male was a janitor.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 7:13 A.M .
Poetry Is All Metaphor
Thomas doesn’t come to me in dreams. He comes to me just before that, when I’m trying to sleep. I write poems when I can’t sleep. I write them in my head and memorize them for the morning, when I can record them in the light of day.
When I was in the third form, a starling got caught in some electrical wire hanging from the high ceiling of our dorm’s porch. Thomas stood there with me, watching it. Helpless together, we were near tears because the bird was going to tear its wing off trying to escape, and we decided the humane thing to do was to put it out of its misery. The whole incident has been burning inside me for almost two years, so I figure I might as well write a poem about it. Here it is.
On his way to class, the boy hears the wild beat of wings
.
Others hear, too; they gather on the porch, heads jerked back
.
Near the top of a column, in a web of electrical wire
,
a sparrow, dull-eyed, hangs by its leg
.
(Starlings are birds that push native birds out of their nests; in other words, they’re not the nicest birds in the world. So I changed it to a sparrow.)
The boys determine it’s been there a day
.
David says it looks embarrassed; Sammy asks if he can shoot it
.
Russell thinks it will chew its leg off and escape
.
(Made-up names to protect the innocent)
Scooping a baseball from his backpack, the poet-boy cocks his arm
.
Last week he wrote a poem about a bird he could not save
,
a parakeet named Chuck that died in the cup of his hand
while he yelled to the sky, over and over, “Breathe!”
(In case you were wondering, I never owned a parakeet—more poetic license.)
Now the boy rips the air, cracking
plaster one inch from the sparrow’s head
.
He tries again; the ball hits brick, drops to brown leaves
.
The third time, he blows on it for luck
,
but it loops into an overgrown hedge
.
When Russell bails it out and hands it to him
,
the poet-boy lingers, half in shadow, half in sun
,
squinting like he’s saving words for later
,
and he lets the ball roll to the ground
like the sound of nothing
.
Writing is about making choices, Miss Dovecott says. One word or phrase or title over another. So many options that they’re almost overwhelming. Which is why it is sometimes so easy to grab the cliché, to reach out to what is familiar. But don’t. Because metaphor is all about the comparison of two unfamiliar, unlike things.
… one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air .
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 7:29 P.M .
I’m getting the distinct feeling that
And then, at the end of our sophomore year, Glenn didn’t ask me to be his roommate, and he turned into someone I didn’t know as well as I thought I did. I honestly believe that if Glenn hadn’t roomed with Thomas, Thomas would still be alive.
Is Male, No Middle Name, No Roman Numerals, Class of 1984
Once a blank slate; now an above-average student from a broken family. Lives with father, son of German immigrants, in a town you’ve never heard of (Black Mountain) in an A-frame house hidden from the road. Will attend a state-supported university (but probably not the one where his father teaches) and will be considered a man of mystery by the coeds because of his seldom-seen dimple. Will go down in the record books as agreeing to The Plan because friendship is more important than romance. Will go down in the record books as being responsible for his friend Thomas Broughton’s death. Is Male could have saved Thomas, maybe, if Is Male hadn’t been goofing around in the water. Is Male had worked as a lifeguard the summer before at a camp, where he’d earned extramoney by cleaning the mess hall and the bathrooms. Is Male was a janitor.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 7:13 A.M .
Poetry Is All Metaphor
Thomas doesn’t come to me in dreams. He comes to me just before that, when I’m trying to sleep. I write poems when I can’t sleep. I write them in my head and memorize them for the morning, when I can record them in the light of day.
When I was in the third form, a starling got caught in some electrical wire hanging from the high ceiling of our dorm’s porch. Thomas stood there with me, watching it. Helpless together, we were near tears because the bird was going to tear its wing off trying to escape, and we decided the humane thing to do was to put it out of its misery. The whole incident has been burning inside me for almost two years, so I figure I might as well write a poem about it. Here it is.
On his way to class, the boy hears the wild beat of wings
.
Others hear, too; they gather on the porch, heads jerked back
.
Near the top of a column, in a web of electrical wire
,
a sparrow, dull-eyed, hangs by its leg
.
(Starlings are birds that push native birds out of their nests; in other words, they’re not the nicest birds in the world. So I changed it to a sparrow.)
The boys determine it’s been there a day
.
David says it looks embarrassed; Sammy asks if he can shoot it
.
Russell thinks it will chew its leg off and escape
.
(Made-up names to protect the innocent)
Scooping a baseball from his backpack, the poet-boy cocks his arm
.
Last week he wrote a poem about a bird he could not save
,
a parakeet named Chuck that died in the cup of his hand
while he yelled to the sky, over and over, “Breathe!”
(In case you were wondering, I never owned a parakeet—more poetic license.)
Now the boy rips the air, cracking
plaster one inch from the sparrow’s head
.
He tries again; the ball hits brick, drops to brown leaves
.
The third time, he blows on it for luck
,
but it loops into an overgrown hedge
.
When Russell bails it out and hands it to him
,
the poet-boy lingers, half in shadow, half in sun
,
squinting like he’s saving words for later
,
and he lets the ball roll to the ground
like the sound of nothing
.
Writing is about making choices, Miss Dovecott says. One word or phrase or title over another. So many options that they’re almost overwhelming. Which is why it is sometimes so easy to grab the cliché, to reach out to what is familiar. But don’t. Because metaphor is all about the comparison of two unfamiliar, unlike things.
… one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air .
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 7:29 P.M .
I’m getting the distinct feeling that
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