admin – Page 8 – Princeton Writes

A Poem for You: Everybody’s Autobiography by Tracy K. Smith

admin2024-02-20T17:14:43-05:00

Everybody’s Autobiography Tracy K. Smith I find myself most alone When I believe I am striving for glory. These times, cool and sharp, A monument of moon-white stone lodges in place near my heart. In a dream, my children Glisten inside raindrops, or teardrops. Like strangers, like seeds of children. I will only be allowed to claim them If I consent to love everyone’s children. If I consent to love everyone’s children, Only then will I be allowed to claim them, My strangers, my seeds of children, Glistening inside raindrops or teardrops In my dream. Children Lodged in place near my [...]

A Poem for You: Everybody’s Autobiography by Tracy K. Smithadmin2024-02-20T17:14:43-05:00

A Poem for You: Theme for English B by Langston Hughes

admin2024-01-29T17:10:43-05:00

Theme for English B Langston Hughes The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem, through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas, Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y, the Harlem Branch Y, where I take [...]

A Poem for You: Theme for English B by Langston Hughesadmin2024-01-29T17:10:43-05:00

Verbs Add Power!

admin2024-09-25T13:40:39-04:00

Verbs Add Power! by Stephanie Whetstone As writers, we want to sound smart and savvy on the page, to fit into the lofty academic world at places like Princeton, or simply to stand out in our communities. Many writers go about this by adding excessive adverbs and adjectives or obscure language to their prose. The theory might be, "If it's difficult to understand, it must sound intelligent!" I wholeheartedly disagree. The best writing is clear, concise, and logically structured. It conveys ideas in a way that invites thought and collaboration, not exclusivity. It educates, enlivens, and elucidates. It does not rely [...]

Verbs Add Power!admin2024-09-25T13:40:39-04:00

A poem for you: The Lost Breath of Trees by Colleen J. McElroy

admin2024-01-24T10:05:04-05:00

The Lost Breath of Trees Colleen J. McElroy an oratorio for vanishing voices, collapsing universes, and a falling tree. —Lena Herzog, Last Whispers 1. in the days before urban sprawl this town remained no more than cow pastures logs skidding down to the harbor gulls riding them like surfboards a green belt embraced the one road north a hundred years they say until the lease expired in those days trees lining each side threw shade over hippies and geese bound to the same direction this was the rainforest and we took for granted the trees that sheltered the sun in shimmering [...]

A poem for you: The Lost Breath of Trees by Colleen J. McElroyadmin2024-01-24T10:05:04-05:00

A Poem for You: Interview by Jordan Kapono Nakamura

admin2024-01-24T10:05:53-05:00

Interview Jordan Kapono Nakamura I want this job because it sounds like something I could do and I’m hungry, physically. I have extensive experience in studying what water says as it plummets. Yes, I can carry more than 35lbs, but what does that have to do with anything? I’ve wrestled angelic beings and the nine lives of pathological compulsion. I have sworn an oath against the roman calendar and its derivative mutations. I can be firm as cold turkey. My two letters of recommendation are f and u. They can be used in surf, which is one way to step on [...]

A Poem for You: Interview by Jordan Kapono Nakamuraadmin2024-01-24T10:05:53-05:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)

admin2023-11-13T09:14:45-05:00

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt) Definition (Adjective) Just begun, incipient; in an initial or early stage; hence elementary, imperfect, undeveloped, immature. In Context “In black America, cultural conservatism takes the form of a inchoate xenophobia (e.g., against whites, Jews, and Asians), systemic sexism, and homophobia.” Cornel West, Race Matters, 1993.

Word of the Week: inchoate (ĭn-KŌ-ĭt)admin2023-11-13T09:14:45-05:00

A Poem for You: Remember by Joy Harjo

admin2023-11-27T15:32:16-05:00

Remember Joy Harjo Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, [...]

A Poem for You: Remember by Joy Harjoadmin2023-11-27T15:32:16-05:00

A Poem for You: The Mountains, by D’Arcy McNickle

admin2023-11-27T11:15:28-05:00

The Mountains D’Arcy McNickle There is snow, now— A thing of silent creeping— And day is strange half-night . . . And the mountains have gone, softly murmuring something . . . And I remember pale days, Pale as the half-night . . . and as strange and sad. I remember times in this room When but to glance thru an opened window Was to be filled with an ageless crying wonder: The grand slope of the meadows, The green rising of the hills, And then far-away slumbering mountains— Dark, fearful, old— Older than old, rusted, crumbling rock, Those mountains . . . But sometimes came a strange thing And [...]

A Poem for You: The Mountains, by D’Arcy McNickleadmin2023-11-27T11:15:28-05:00

Book of the Month: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (2023)

admin2023-09-25T11:48:48-04:00

Tom Lake (2023) by Ann Patchett Critical Evaluation “Tom Lake” collects enchanted places, sites of congregation like the lake and the stage, or like Chekhov’s cherry orchard and the town in “Our Town.” Patchett suggests that in these timeless locales, with their renewable springs of ghostly personae, characters can safely warehouse past versions of themselves and others. Or at least that’s the idea. Rather than fear the cemetery, Lara and her kids love it and its promise of “everlasting inclusion.” As a girl, Emily “liked to run her fingers along the tombstones, the letters worn nearly to nothing, the stones speckled [...]

Book of the Month: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (2023)admin2023-09-25T11:48:48-04:00

A Poem for You: The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver

admin2023-11-27T11:12:52-05:00

The Summer Day Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know [...]

A Poem for You: The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver admin2023-11-27T11:12:52-05:00

About admin

Contact Info