Lawyering is changing the world with words, eh? Well there's a broad definition if I've ever seen one. Changing the way the law regards an individual or class of persons, thereby changing the way the law dictates others' interactions with them, is one way to change the world with words. Lawyering? Sure. But what about changing the way an individual perceives another person or class of persons, with that change in perception affecting the way they interact - that's changing the world (at least a tiny portion of it) with words as well. Lawyering? Who knows.

Does it matter? Not really.

This here is a topic thread for student to post their creative works. It will all be open to honest, critical review for the sake of fostering growth and expanding one's mastery of language, as well as open, fawning admiration for the sake of bolstering egos. Because, hey, you probably didn't get the Torts prize...

I'll go first. Please, feel free (encouraged even) to follow with your own work or comments/critiques of others'.

Summer Singers

Today, they are wriggling 
in their translucent strands,  
those unborn summer singers 
strung in the stream 
like lost ellipses, 
struggling to wake.  Some will 
be baked in the sun 
while their damp bed dries 
and the edges harden, 
crack and curl, crisp
while drought drops the level.

There will be, too, 
those that grow 
larger, and little legs 
that let them leap 
beyond the banks 
where there is little enough flowing,
flee from the unfulfilled promises 
spring brings:  the rotting things, 
the wilted wild flowers, 
their purple petals, 
the minnows, their minute movements 
barely stirring the settled sediment, 
the current's choked course,
the encroaching weeds.

There is hope 
some will survive; 
they litter the ground 
peeping and hopping and squashed, 
eating and eaten and starved, 
looking to last until at last 
those that do can swell their throats with song, 
echo all night long 
their longing.

-- MichaelHilton - 11 Feb 2010

Hey man, that's actually really good. I enjoyed reading it; I like the flow.

-- ChristopherCrismanCox - 15 Feb 2010

I second that. Thanks for sharing.

-- JessicaCohen - 18 Feb 2010

Thanks for taking a look guys - got anything of your own? I know there are bound to be at least a few more folks out there with some creative spark, ya shouldn't be shy. Are we really as risk-averse as Eben says? (I'd like to think no) Take a risk, let someone see a different side of ya!

I finished another poem recently. Take a look.

A Plastic Bag Was

A plastic bag was
buffeted, blown, and
inextricably enveloped 
in the clear; 

that white shining soared, 
awash in the air, empty 
of anything's absence.

It rose, riffling in the cold 
current, carried high 
its shadow, drifting 
small on a red-brick wall.

Inundated in sky it slit
that building-bounded blue, 
slid and spun, engulfed
in eddies and enticing.

It will flex, bend, swell 
with the wind's rising 
- rolling hollows heave,
engorged in the waxing 
flow that fails - then,

lolling and pellucid,
edify in its ebbing
and end.  Embraced,
entangled in angled limbs, 
worn ragged by the bark 
of backlit branches.

Alright, got a new one. This is what you call complete, but unpolished. The entire thought is formed, and down, but the specifics are lacking, and the desired effect is impeded. I see this happen with lots of writing, not just poetry, and it translates into arguments (like my first version of the first paper). It's possible to have a whole thought, but lack the polish, the specificity, that makes it convey what you're after. While the idea may be a good one, it's a given that the flaws in language can and will be used by opponents to imply meanings, while not intended, which can seriously detract from the argument's overall effectiveness.

Enough rambling, here's something to read.

Star Fruit

The night is still 
now, quiet, dripping,
damp lamplights long 
ago gone bright -

bloomed, flickered 
open like the evening's 
morning glory, throwing 
flashes of pale pink;

an angle's trumpet, 
brugmansia's orange
opening gave way, now 
white, heavy and held 
high, spilling over into 
the darkness.  The black 

tarmac is slick, saturated 
shining branches sway slightly  
overhead; twigs droop,
drops hanging clear and 

pendant at their ends 
as if budding, as if 
the light has coalesced.
At the tips of branches

the star fruits swell, ripen,
and, falling from their facets,
briefly streak the sky.

I like this, especially the line about the lamplights gone bright.

One thought: angle's trumpet: was angel meant here?

-- DevinMcDougall - 17 Apr 2010