LITR 3731 Creative Writing 2006

Sheila Rhodes

PEOPLE

People who are we and why do we exist?

Are we here for one another?

Or are we like the gorillas, in the mist?

Should we help each other?

Or just watch each other cry

 Should we step back and wait for each one to die?

Our brothers and sisters never cease to cry out

How can we nurture them and allow them to sprout?

Who is in the mind of another?  No one

Can we rightfully say we love and then criticize our brother?

The world in which we live is such a bitter place

I wonder if it is like this in outer space?

Oh what a corrupt place to be -

Beautification and love is so hard to see

Love is color blind and has no prejudice

How can we as people seek out the long awaited justice?

That our perfect maker has conscientiously made for us?  We can’t

People, who are we and why do we exist?

Are we here for one another?

Or are we like the gorillas, in the mist?

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Poetry Process

I wrote this poem while sitting at work on my new job.  This poem and these words came to me when the person who was to be training me did not want to do it.  She acted as if she was too busy and too impatient and she acted as if I should have come to the job knowing what to do already.

Ron Burton, classmate responded by saying   Wow! After reading my poem.  He made the statement he was writing a paper on Truth for a philosophy class and I'm using some charismatic leaders (i.e., Gandhi, MLK, etc) and this poem really brings together
a lot of what they questioned.  It's really great.  I can feel the frustration and need to understand and be understood.  You write very well.

Class Mate Ron Burton wrote there is only one thing I'm having trouble relating to and that's the idea of gorillas in the mist.  I'm old enough to have seen the movie (by the same title), is that the imagery you are going for?  A sort of hidden-by-mystery metaphor, or that we are endangered, or am I off on both accounts?  I explained to Ron that this was a metaphor examining the blur or blurry or unclear thoughts of a wild animal or a mind in a mist…. or fog.  It is meant to be something that is unclear or misunderstood. I looked up the definition of “mist” and this is what the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary had to say…mist- something that obscures understanding.   There was another definition, but this one best fit the metaphor that I tried to describe in the poem.   It has nothing to do with the movie; it has to do with the fog or pretentious or ignorant state of mind that we as people live in.  Prejudice is ignorance.  It is fear of the unknown and when we don’t   know or understand people or a situation we walk around in a mist or a fog always thinking the way we see things as individuals as being right and not thinking of the situation as a “people” or society as a whole.  It is the mist or fog that we walk in when we think we are superior to another individual or race.  And prejudice comes when we think we’re smarter, prettier, better or any self viewed superiority.

Ron also stated “I do love the idea of gorillas in the mist, but a younger reader may not get the idea behind it.  One suggestion might be to use the gorilla as a symbol for people throughout the poem and correlate our behavior to theirs; so, the reader has to realize that you are describing people.  I had an instructor teach--show, don't tell--and I guess I'm still hung up on that. Either that, or, only use the reference to gorillas once?  I don't know.  I like it the way it is, but our mission with this is to improve it.  That's all I can
come up with”.

Demra Trube, classmate and partner wrote, “This is a very good poem because it makes you think about how we treat each other. I also liked how there was some rhyme, but not that much. You really don't notice it unless you look for it. I think a lot of rhyming would take away from the poem. One thing that bothered me was that there were so many question marks but very few other punctuation marks. I think the main reason that bothered me was because I can be very picky and a perfectionist. So, tiny things like that bother me when they're not done.

My response to the punctuation, at the time I did not think that I needed much punctuation. I went back and looked at the punctuation and decided that when I revise I will add more punctuation where it is needed. I knew when I wrote it there were a lot of questions and barely any punctuation, but as a free flow poem, I wrote this as a thought that was going through my mind and not actual poetry. 

link to discussion leader's questions