This is a great intro to a really unique poem. The structure pushed me to open up my first draft a few times to some deeper reflections on details, and turning points. Here's the latest version:
All summer I lived with what I could fit in a CRV that only I would drive into the middle of our U.S., where in thinner air my voice was so much better at saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in equal amounts, to work and play in equal amounts, telling the internship-based community who I hoped to be and who I simply was not. All summer I rotated my few professional outfits in my shabby stoner student sublet and walked the few blocks under the always-hotter sun to a desk, my anchor in the dazzling orbit of intelligent and occasionally humble professionals whose lives were mine to interrogate over eight weeks. All summer I was one of over a dozen young people invited to impress a one-of-a-kind company in a one-of-a-kind Colorado town - and all summer, I was one of many fewer who wasn’t interested in being anything but alive then and there. All summer, too, I reveled in my confident ability to ignore the cloying ex-boyfriend who was also there because privilege works that way in small, well-funded schools. All summer I rejected romance, tasted mountains, breathed liberty, listened to silence, grew callouses on my hands and feet, used the smell of early morning dirt and afternoon storms to know my place in space and time. All summer I followed instinct and friendship and forgot about the future every chance I got. All summer I absorbed each day without adding the weight of wishing it would never end, so that I almost forgot it even could, ever, end. All summer I was happy making the happiest summer that I would later realize I had ever had.
this is great, and btw suleika, richard blanco has joined the FIU creative writing program where my husband is the director—- we all would love to get you to miami in the near future for a reading or speaking engagement—-i have been telling everyone about the amazing work you are doing—- through the isolation journals, your fabulous memoir, and your incredible conversations with other creative souls, sharing so much inspiration and and light✨
This is a great intro to a really unique poem. The structure pushed me to open up my first draft a few times to some deeper reflections on details, and turning points. Here's the latest version:
All summer I lived with what I could fit in a CRV that only I would drive into the middle of our U.S., where in thinner air my voice was so much better at saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in equal amounts, to work and play in equal amounts, telling the internship-based community who I hoped to be and who I simply was not. All summer I rotated my few professional outfits in my shabby stoner student sublet and walked the few blocks under the always-hotter sun to a desk, my anchor in the dazzling orbit of intelligent and occasionally humble professionals whose lives were mine to interrogate over eight weeks. All summer I was one of over a dozen young people invited to impress a one-of-a-kind company in a one-of-a-kind Colorado town - and all summer, I was one of many fewer who wasn’t interested in being anything but alive then and there. All summer, too, I reveled in my confident ability to ignore the cloying ex-boyfriend who was also there because privilege works that way in small, well-funded schools. All summer I rejected romance, tasted mountains, breathed liberty, listened to silence, grew callouses on my hands and feet, used the smell of early morning dirt and afternoon storms to know my place in space and time. All summer I followed instinct and friendship and forgot about the future every chance I got. All summer I absorbed each day without adding the weight of wishing it would never end, so that I almost forgot it even could, ever, end. All summer I was happy making the happiest summer that I would later realize I had ever had.
this is great, and btw suleika, richard blanco has joined the FIU creative writing program where my husband is the director—- we all would love to get you to miami in the near future for a reading or speaking engagement—-i have been telling everyone about the amazing work you are doing—- through the isolation journals, your fabulous memoir, and your incredible conversations with other creative souls, sharing so much inspiration and and light✨