2021

This year, we presented Findley in an effort to appreciate him as well as potentially use his writing on a diploma.

I emulated from the following section of The Wars:

“He took his aim. His arm wavered. His eyes burned with sweat. Why didn’t someone come and jump on his back and make him stop? He fired. A chair fell over in his mind. He closed his eyes and opened them. The air in front of him was filled with little fires but the horse was not dead. It had thrown itself forward, lurching towards the Sergeant Major, who calmly stepped aside with his hands behind his back. Regis ran to grab at the halters of the section behind them where all the horses started to pound the decks with their hooves. The horse was trying to stand. Robert threw down his hat. Jesus; for Christ’s sake—die.”

My emulation:

He took his aim. To shoot; to kill. To shake hands with the devil and kick at the sprawling hands of survival. A pact was made – a promise to kill the enemy. A promise to win – but at what cost? Truly, he was killing himself. So then he was the enemy. His own enemy.

A circumstance can be blamed and excuses made, but he still pulled the trigger. Blood splattered on the bleached walls of his conscience. He would never be the same.

Medals would be awarded and they’d remember him as a hero. Accolades will slip from the walls devoid of conscience. They’ll say they’re glad he’s alive – but he won’t be.

This is my emulation of the Tupac seminar:

When I was young, things weren’t the same.

Every day was special – each it’s own game.

Never enough time to spend each hour.

We were young and the world was ours.

 

Last year you tried to call me,

but you never there when I needed someone to hold me.

I can’t forget how I finally grew up.

Put shoes on and got out.

 

I know that’s not how we’re meant to live – and that’s what it’s all about.

Another day, another prayer that I’m long gone.

Another day, another blessing that I finally won.

 

2020

This year, we decided to try something new and go for a Pakistani poet for our writer’s seminar project. We chose to present Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and decided to emulate particularly from the following poem:

Don’t ask me to love you the way I did before, my love

I’d imagined life to be bright and glowing because you were in it

What cared I for sorrows other than the joys of pining in your love?

It’s your beauty that keeps springtime intact upon the world

What else remains to be sought in the universe but your eyes?

Below is my cold emulation:

Don’t ask me to love you the way I did before,

for before I was a prince

given that title by you – the princess.

Now the royalty has been struck down

by some selfish God who

does not wish for our happiness.

Each night was a breeze –

the breeze in spring that brings ease

upon us lovers who met by the moon,

but one night I waited

and they snuffed out the moon.

So don’t ask me to love you the way I did before,

since I am weathered and old.

Then, the moon shone so bright yet

now God has dimmed that light.

2019

Our writer’s seminar project was on the late sci-fi and dystopian author Ray Bradbury, particularly based off of his novel Fahrenheit 451, and the following two quotes.

 

“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black.”

 

“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. She was as rational as you and I, more so perhaps, and we burned her… You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days. Well, this fire’ll last me the rest of my life. God! I’ve been trying to put it out, in my mind, all night. I’m crazy with trying.”

Below is my cold emulation writing:

It isn’t happiness, is it? This feeling I long awaited: the hour at which I could equip my faithful helmet, slide down the pole and, spraying venomous kerosene upon the wretched, disgusting books. As surely as the brass nozzle should not waver in my grip, and as faithfully as I would spray the death upon rows and rows – I am sure that something must be there. Something dwells in the books; a secret knowledge of sorts, perhaps, but I am aware that surely, as certain as the orange flame that engulfs me, that whatever it is must dwell in me too. They cannot be evil; some use must be made of these artifacts of the past, now made grenades and flamethrowers of today. And to think that firemen do the burning is correct in aspect, yet not in reality. For it is not books being burned, it is love, and hate, and sadness, and joy, all being massacred as though war criminals. Yes, war criminals, that we have made them. Guilty of a crime they have not committed. How could it be happiness?