Creative Writing Commons^™

All Is Ripe For Fire, Dana Marie Killmeyer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

All is Ripe for Fire is a two-part lyrical meditation that captures the world of the unnamed speaker who is visited by the image of a woman, such as the one who appears in the very first poem, "The Unnamed," which begins with an invitation to reader: "Let us look at the French woman's hand touching the flame to her sleeve." However, no sooner is the reader's attention drawn to the woman's hand, the flame, and then to her sleeve, than the image of the woman is gone entirely. In a matter of a few words, the figure of the …

All The King's Horses, Christopher Caruso

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

All The King’s Horses juxtaposes the struggle of artistic creation alongside the trauma of 9/11. This collection of poetry presents the failure of language and art to define the boundaries of anxiety’s origins. Aware of these limitations the “I” in this poem struggles to find a reprieve in defining something that cannot be defined.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts from freshman themes by authors:Robert Mann, Robert Holcomb, Helen Wells, Evelyn Petersen, Donald Morgan, Clara May Masterson, and Mary Elizabeth Donnell.

D Minor, Jean Siskel

Manuscripts

With stealthy passion
The music filled the room,
Brushing with mystic melody
His throbbing heart.

Outside the stony window frames
Were trees,
Rustling excitedly,
Bowing with frantic grace.

Do trees have hearts? Can they too
Feel the stirring touch of tone?
For trees, there is wind;
For men, music.

On Nantucket Sound, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Do you recall the morning on Nantucket Sound
when white wind whipped our sails against the August sun,
when we stood tanned and laughing, loving the sea, and bound
for any port or none?

Do you recall that out from the tiny towns which lay
along the coast, came salty strangers seeking cod,
tanned and laughing as we, plundering the bay
with net and fishing rod?

Do you recall that when the west waxed pink again
homeward we turned the tiller, and as we came around
with sails set full for shore, lights flashed from a world forgotten
on Nantucket …

Dry Leaves, Mary M. Schortemeier

Manuscripts

In stealth
Stalking its prey
Winter is creeping
Groping its way.

Today
Summer is reigning.
Only the dry leaves
Show it is waning.

Too soon
Comes one final leap
For winter - for summer
Only to weep.

Today
My heart is young.
Dry leaves for me?
From mortals I'm sprung.

Flamingos, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Far through the jungle, bird cries mark night's end.
Eastwardly the sky is streaked with pink,
and near the water's edge black orchids bend
beneath webbed-feet, as white flamingos drink.

Deep among the spindling silent stalks
which border banks surrounding the lagoon
wet reeds stir, and a tall flamingo walks
infringing on the sleep of afternoon.

Flamingos showing silver in the night
fly far above the jungle toward the west,
and following a star's transluscent light
at length reach home, and white flamingos rest.

Poets Don't Ride Motorcycles, Andrew G. Tully

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This is a collection of poems that focus more on minutia and happenstance than larger universal themes. Using free-form lines and stanzas, spare construction, and dark yet powerful imagery, these poems remind readers of the meaningful emotional impact everyday items and interactions can have. The extraordinary and unusual are important too, and form a stark contrast to the poems about the mundane. These poems are not meant to be a final collection, but are a solid base for a book-length manuscript that will expand on the themes, images, and stories contained in this thesis.

Adviser: Kwame Dawes

Sehnsucht, Dena Ten Pas

Theses & Honors Papers

Sehnsucht is German, referring to a longing or yearning, sometimes further qualified as the longing for something unknown or something that will never be possible.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts from additional submissions by authors: Melvin Kuebler, Richard Jowitt, Mary Elizabeth Black, Quentin West, Edward F. Wright, Margie Ann Hukriede, Margaret Dawson, Don R. Cutsinger, and Suzanne Van Talge.

Two Poems, Margaret Byram

Manuscripts

On Discovering a Book of Shelley's Poems

A portion of the feeling that once hallowed Keats
when he kenned the vast unknown
And stood, a Watcher, rapt, alone,
Came to me, a vision, swift, unbearable
In beauty scarcely born.

The joy of fusing with a master's soul,
The searching bliss of first discovery
Swept my mind, and left me tense and free,
A spirit treading the fresh-dewed grass
In early morn.

My Attitude Toward Poems, Richard Outcalt

Manuscripts

I am not interested in most poems. At one time I disliked poetry to the full extent of my ability, but as I grew up I became aware that to many people, poetry was all right. On careful consideration of this awakening, I decided that there were undoubtedly merits to poetry, but that you had to be in the mood to really get anything out of them. This mood to me seemed to signify a pale thin fellow skipping with gaily outstretched arms and fingers, romping through sunny fields of buttercups chasing gorgeous butterflies, then, tiring of this strenuous exercise, …

Credo, Mary Wiley

Manuscripts

In our sad days it is a woman's part
To keep alive the things that ease the soul,
All music and delight. It is her role
To pour out lovely songs to fill the heart
With tenderness again, and hopeful start
The hymnal in the church; amid the whole
Of dark, confusing time out of control
To sing, and let not loveliness depart.

Unfaltering faith is difficult to keep
When futile tears fall on the changeless earth
And still are dried by the recurrent sun.
Mankind may perish if its women weep
Too much, too long. We will allow no …

The Silversmith, Joe Berry

Manuscripts

The child was born unto a silversmith,
born son and grandson both of silversmiths
in the small room behind the dusty shop.

The old man stopped his pounding on his bench,
his son turned down the fiercely blasting fire
when the child was born. But when he breathed, cried
and howled, they worked again, as they had done
all morning - and as they had done
for years before, the old man and his son:
silver sculptors, bracelet makers, fashioners
of all small articles from gleaming blocks.
Now they were glad; not for two hundred years
had the house lacked …

April Thoughts In War Time, Helen E. Hughes

Manuscripts

Sonnet

Blue skies are cruelest now; immense, they bend
Over the lonely land, uncompromising,
Unconcerned, aloof. Unnatural friend!
Whose time is April when the sweet surprising
Daffodils spring up to rival such
A brave and tender blue! We who are used
To turning calm eyes skyward now see much
Of heaven that is alien and confused.
Where once we laughed into the sun's embrace,
Once welcomed friendly rain, once searched the broad
And democratic sky for Saturn's face,
And, searching, strained to touch the hand of God;
We now stand under skies that vomit fire.
Be angry at the blue …

Poem, Ardath Weigler

Manuscripts

I Ivy and jew growing in pink and blue
mugs
Mugs meant for small children
Mugs settled primly on lace doilies
Atop a spinster desk ....

TWO MONTHS LATER
II He was standing there under the neon
sign-tall, hair rough in the wind-
broken outline of glasses and upturn-
ed collar ....
Dull tap of narrow black heels on
the asphalt.
He turned as they walked toward
him, to him, past him.
Her heart did a flat-footed ballet
as she thought, "This is the end, fool."
-tugging, choking, adolescent heav-
iness crushing her breath with its
vacuum.
He thought, "She's …