{"id":4720,"date":"2020-08-07T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=4720"},"modified":"2020-07-29T11:57:53","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T15:57:53","slug":"lyrics-on-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2020\/08\/07\/lyrics-on-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyrics on Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the oldest forms of self-expression, poetry can serve as a linguistic tool for current event commentary. In Professor Peter Balakian<\/a>\u2019s spring Poetry Writing Workshop, students felt compelled to write about the pandemic in the final weeks of the semester. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey wanted to use lyric and compressed language to capture some of the intensity and depth of this moment,\u201d Balakian says. \u201cPoems do witness the complexity of life, and that\u2019s why we need them in the larger civic space of our society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a selection of poems from the class:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Never Listened to the Birds Before <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Madison Heggins \u201920<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never listened to the birds before,
\nnow small wings turn wicked beats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lone sound from a white chested, black-bowed
\nbird. The dog trying to catch it in its mouth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It presses its talons into hard ridges
\nof sloped roof. Another call. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never listened to the cars before.
Rubber on wet concrete. Billie Jean through a cracked window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We miss the hostility of car horns. The old man always
\nsmoking in front of the station. The garbage man slams a plastic bin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the alley. One less man than usual. The loud engine
\nused to signal pajamas, slippers, head scarves, a week\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

trash in rushed hands. Everyone having forgotten the day
\nthat\u2019s remained the same for years. Now everything forgotten is done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never listened to the wind before.
\nOne powerful gust smelling of bleach and desperate bread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrying sounds: slap of disinfectant on somebody\u2019s pruned hands,
\nchildren next door, who have not left their home in two weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wind chimes from down the street muffling breathing,
\na blown trash bag landing on undisturbed grass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never listened to the rain before.
\nRace the droplets creeping down the damp wood of the old fence, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

drowning the croaks of the little beetles that live there. Smell
\nthe storm, hear the old tree slapping its wet limbs against the second floor window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sounds of a dog\u2019s paws scrambling against wet earth into a dry home.
\nSomething new in the routine. Old too. Dip a pinky into a puddle,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

press it to the brick of the home, watch the water wash into the cracks,
\nthe concrete as old as the youngest daughter inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sand, Colorado<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Tristan Niskanen \u201920 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Corona sign\u2019s turned off \u2014
Chicken Ricky\u2019s closed.
Los Cabos across the street
has to go margaritas to stay alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discos dead but Bee Gees revived.
\nChalk & hopscotch,
\nbathtub gin during the pathogen.
\nThen watch news, boozed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decant it then chant it.
\nBy sun & Sopris,
\nthinking this the place to be,
\nhaikus near HighQ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another scribbler about the virus.
\nAt least can place myself better
\nhere than if I were writing about
\nthe Sand Creek Massacre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both kill & are in Colorado
\nbut we can wear masks & stay inside.
\nWe don\u2019t have to fear the army or
\nChivington skinning Arapaho & Cheyenne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I fear the cough & fever
\nI never have to worry it\u2019s small
\npox. But I do worry about death
\nwhen massacres & pandemics hit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon it\u2019ll be over, they say,
\nwe\u2019re in this together, but when\u2019s
\nthe next Colorado War or state
\nlockdown. Sun goes down on <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspen spring. Trees bud. Ginsberg
\nAmerica. Poems are a peculiar tonic.
\nWords are one remedy. I know you
\nwould like to know the panacea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Dead Zone <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Cho \u201920<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purple perennials and chickweed over green hilltop.
\nBlue light from the display screens of computers and smartphones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The calm that takes over during a silent exchange with the eyes.
\nThe surge of anxiety from a momentary pause when a web page refuses to load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A silk hand, warm, that reaches out to tenderly hold yours.
\nA like or a heart pinned to your post, the modern sign of validation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nervous, cracked voice, the courage to utter one\u2019s name for the first time.
\nA careless swipe across a phone screen, contemplating attractiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Energizing conversation, laughter, tears, the lively passing of time.
\nShutting the door to watch yet another episode of your most recent binge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children whispering the secret password before entering the treehouse.
\nChildren nagging parents and friends for the password to the Wifi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandy rough edges, pages of a book held between fingertips.
\n\u201c404 Page Not Found\u201d; the server fails to serve you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stranger\u2019s voice giving directions down the sweet vernal grass lined road.
\nThe robotic inflections of a recalculating navigation system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The giddiness of seeing a handwritten note on the countertop, for you.
\nA message worth pacing by the mailbox for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neighbors out on porches agreeing how pretty the hydrangeas look.
\nThe Japanese Maple has never seen itself, humbly accepts compliments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We no longer celebrate in the quest for answers.
\nWhat for, when we have search engines? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AIDS, Cholera, the Black Death \u2014 we have seen.
Walk invincible toward invisible malware viruses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pace calmly through the dead zones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 Musings <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brynn April \u201920<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned on the metal hand mixer
\nin the world of black and white
\nink, unleashed torrents of words
\nbaked into articles and speeches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

smeared across television screens.
They call me \u201cthe invisible enemy\u201d \u2014
I hear it echoing across chartreuse
wallpaper kitchens, words flashing red<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like the blood that roars in my ears,
\na river surging between banks of skin
\nwhile the edges of my RNA, frayed
\nelectrical wires, call for the source<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of power that fuels my replication.
\nIts surge creates my race of clones
\ntrying their new legs and spreading
\nacross landscapes of air and breath:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fevers under weighted den blankets,
\nsighs before buzzing Apple office desktops,
\ncoughs stifled in puffy playground coats.
\nThey cause the pinwheel of screams<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that progresses in instants of frozen time \u2014
raindrops pounding on emptied streets,
wooden chairs piled behind restaurants,
neon red \u201cOPEN\u201d signs switched off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, to have sold-out baseball stadiums,
and limbs under pulsing club lights,
laughter over warm-plated filet mignons
as \u201chello\u201ds float in and out of being \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the human pleasantries that fuel me \u2014
now replaced by their masked mouths,
Lysol cans and hoarded toilet paper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Participation Points<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lizzie Svach \u201922<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The squirrels are eating the tulip heads again,
\nagain I am the bitter person this town produced.
\nStuck in the same state I left at 18
\nit is hard to feel the earth\u2019s rebirth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My half uncle lost his full mother.
\nThe funeral was on facebook live,
\njust like my 11 year old cousin\u2019s girl scout sing along.
\nPeople want to know if was the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So sad, let it at least be exciting,
\nmaybe they can say they are apart of this.
\nThey might know someone
\nwho lost to the headline of a newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will shake the hand of each spring breaker
\nif it means another second they are still.
\nMy family watches the news praising the essential,
\nthe ones society feels fine putting on the front lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While people wait in their homes,
\nantsy to help or quiet their guilt,
\nlisting the ones who have it hardest,
\nlike a flimsy memorial for those already counted as dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pity isn’t sympathy its a hierarchy,
\nand you stand on the shoulders of your heros,
\nlooking down at them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Peter Balakian’s students wrote poems about the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[553,94],"coauthors":[135],"class_list":["post-4720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-voices","tag-covid-19","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-1e8","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4720"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4837,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4720\/revisions\/4837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4720"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}