Revisions and plans

I recently submitted my poem, Sevilla to Hilldale's The Towerlight, a student publication featuring student poetry, photography and other various forms of art. I edited my original version, thankful for some good suggestions, and came up with this:



The evenings here are fragrant, warm and black.
The fan's monotony on the stillness
A dull lullaby that stirs, a dry breath.

In my mind, mil pensamientos
and the struggle to quiet them all.
Silent tears evaporate and cool,

bringing a meager relief.
Outside the thick heat blankets,
hushing the leaves.

The quiet is broken, an instant--now
A soft thud the sole rebellious sound
The tell-tale fragrance drifts through the window
An orange has fallen down to the ground.

Its sweet, strong odor escaping the rind
Filling moments that pass, marking the time.


I had trouble breaking down the sonnet form I had created. Dr. John Freeh, my undoubtedly favorite professor of all time, told us that to become poets, we must first write well within the bounds of meter and rhyme. Essentially, a good poet can write a good sonnet: then he's free to experiment. I keep that in mind and challenge myself to write sonnets. But, mine needed a change or two and this was the result.

The line about crying also annoyed me. Why do I include that? They liked it at The Towerlight. I thought they would. But I am not quite satisfied. It seems too dramatic and unfounded. It is true to the situation though, so perhaps I can justify it to myself that way. (Why I'm justifying it to myself, I don't know. The general fear of being laughed at, or even the skeptical raise of the eyebrow can do me in sometimes.)


I want to challenge myself to write a post once a week. Now that I'm practically concocting my own linguistics major here--with Spanish, German and Ancient Greek--I don't get the opportunity to write in English anymore and this at least provides an outlet for my thoughts, legible for the average American reader (or more specifically and accurately, this is for my aunt who kindly reads my blog).

I believe my current living situation will provide much food for thought and the stuff of blog posts. I live in a sorority house. It's wonderful, noisy, chocolate-y, rambunctious and sometimes obnoxious. At quarter to midnight here at the house, I'm preparing to sleep, others are working out, some are passed out and my roommate is telling me how desperate she is to shower. I'm going to our huge upstairs bathroom to brush my teeth and have an evening chat through spats of toothpaste.