Poetry+Assignment+Two

Here's the model for this assignment. The assignment is below.

"The Icelandic Language" by Bill Holm code format="poembox" In this language, no industrial revolution; no pasteurized milk; no oxygen, no telephone; only sheep, fish, horses, water falling. The middle class can hardly speak it.

In this language, no flush toilet; you stumble through dark and rain with a handful of rags. The door groans; the old smell comes up from under the earth to meet you.

But this language believes in ghosts; chairs rock by themselves under the lamp; horses neigh inside an empty gully, nothing at the bottom but moonlight and black rocks.

The woman with marble hands whispers this language to you in your sleep; faces come to the window and sing rhymes; old ladies wind long hair, hum, tat, fold jam inside pancakes.

In this language, you can't chit-chat holding a highball in your hand, can't even be polite. Once the sentence starts its course, all your grief and failure come clear at last.

Old inflections move from case to case, gender to gender, softening consonants, darkening vowels, till they sound like the sea moving icebergs back and forth in its mouth. code Write a poem about a specific type of thing that you know how to do or topic you know about, and express the "language" of that topic (meaning details about that topic). An example could be a sport, something cultural, or a hobby...something that is unique to you.

For example: a topic could be piano, and you might say:

"In this language keys swim in a sea of white and black, while fingers skip around, bending in a dance... In this language..."

(So you might want to start off "in this language" like the piece in the book did--just to make it easier)

Use specific examples describing the "language" of your topic, and lots of objects, with concise imagery and details.

Make sure to show the reader what it is like to do this certain topic, or be apart of this certain event through these images, and objects.

Remember to stay away from abstractions, and make it concise.

Due on Thursday night.