Trapped
Draft 1Sitting in this desk,
Keeping track of the ticking clock. The ticks can keep it thinking, But the tocks just can’t keep This wandering mind on lock. When will 4:45 strike? What faces wait behind the wooden door? Does this dreary day hold a surprise? Is there dinner waiting in the kitchen? The wandering mind can be powerful, Dangerous, liberating, fearful, and hopeful. For the body has limits But the mind roams freely. Draft 2This trap takes form of a wooden desk
Enslaving the self to the task at hand Being fed information That will never nourish what my mind hungers for. For my mind craves to dive deeper To scratch the bottom of the sea It lives for the surge of imagination The high of creating something new. It shrivels at the thought of absolute Melting at the thought of no interpretation Weeps when innovation is shut down When its forced to see the world through one view For in this moment in time My mind rattles in this wooden crate Awaiting that clock to strike So it can burst out and roam away. Draft 3This trap takes form of a wooden desk
Enslaving the self to the task at hand Being force fed information That will never satiate the mind’s hunger. The mind craves to dive deeper To scrape sand off the bottom of the sea It thrives on the surge of the shock of imagination And the high of creating something new. It shrivels at the thought of an absolute And wilts away with suppressed interpretation. Its tears flood cities The tears that shed for shutting down innovation. For as the drone at the front of the classroom Continues the standardized education The mind rattles in this wooden trap. Awaiting its opportunity to set loose. Draft 4This trap takes form of a wooden desk
Keeping the mind held back. Chained to the cold, hard ground Giving it no choice but to Sit. Absorb. Regurgitate. Repeat. The mind rattles, resisting this conforming focus For something inside it is ticking And telling itself You’re made for more than this Sit. Absorb. Regurgitate. Repeat. Shriveling at the sight of the twisted minds That lie before it and will come after. The mind physically hungers for more And wonders when this- Sit.Absorb.Regurgitate.Repeat. Draft 5This trap takes form of a wooden desk
Keeping the mind held back. Chained to the cold, hard ground Giving it no choice but to sit and listen. The mind rattles, resisting this conforming focus For something inside it is ticking And telling itself You’re made for more than this Shriveling at the sight of the twisted minds That lie before it and will come after. The mind physically hungers for more And wonders when this standardization of Education will end? |
ERN This poem was part of an assignment we had to do in the middle of the semester, where we had to write a poem with what we thought was our voice, and then another poem on the same subject where we felt we weren’t using our voice. The first draft of this poem was titled Wandering Mind. This is the poem I said was written in my natural voice. Naturally, I am a very curious and positive person. However, I’ve found that when I tap into an alternative voice as I go to write, I usually like my writing better. I liked this poem, but it was lacking depth and images. There are too many abstractions in this draft such as “dangerous, liberating, fearful, and hopeful”.
This second draft is titled Trapped. Looking back on the assignment, I realized my best voice is an alternative voice from my natural one. This tone is a little darker than what I would normally think to write about. The inspiration for this poem came from sitting in on a boring lecture, and remembering wanting to get out of that lecture so I could learn and do things that actually stimulated and interested me. The things working in this draft are definitely the images. What I don’t like about this draft is that its in first person. It is talking about my mind and how I feel about the situation. While this is okay, I know as a reader that sometimes its hard for me to dive into a poem that’s written in first person. For the third draft, I tried to make the speaker third person. In doing so, I also edited my word choice. One of the flaws, like in the first draft, is that there’s a lot of abstract ideas like “imagination” and “innovation”. What my ultimate goal for the end product of this poem is to be a poem that kind of “sticks-it-to-the-man”. I want it to be a critique at just how useless some of the required education is in the school systems, no matter how old they are. There also isn’t much rhyme or rhythm to this poem, and no real sound sense. This draft, I focused on making a sound sense and making a rhythm to the poem. I drew inspiration for the rhythm from various spoken word pieces that I’ve heard over the past years. When thinking about being trapped in a classroom where you’re not really interested in the content, a phrase came to mind “Sit. Absorb. Regurgitate. Repeat”. I know for the particular class that I was writing this poem about, the subject matter is extremely irrelevant to what I want to do with my life, so this “Sit. Absorb. Regurgitate. Repeat.” Motto is more of my approach to the class. I wanted to stress just how suppressing these kinds of classes can be, so with every repeat, I made the words closer together, indicating that the reader should read them faster. Then, at the end, this phrase cuts off the narrative of the poem and it ends with these four words squished together. This was the first time I’d ever written poetry outside of my natural voice, and that’s criticizing something. And through writing this poem, I found that the voice I should continue to work with throughout my writing career should probably vary from my natural voice. As a fifth draft, I took out the repeated phrase "Sit. Absorb. Regurgitate. Repeat" to see how that would impact the poem. As I was writing it, I was wondering what the purpose of the repeated phrase served, and now seeing the poem without it, I see that it serves a greater purpose than I first thought. I like repeating phrases and words in poems, and I appreciate it when other poets repeat lines or phrases and does it well. |