On a Friday in April, the students of Stan Galloway's freshman English class at Bridgewater College thought they would have a pretty easy day of it. There were guest speakers coming in (Ray Brown and Annmarie Lockhart, all the way from New Jersey to participate in the Virginia Humanities Conference), no real work to be done outside of staying awake for an hour. They thought wrong. But they did good. An hour later they had written a poem, something they hadn't planned to do and mostly had no desire to do. The poem is a testament to the fun of the creative collective, even the most impromptu and semi-resistant variety. Let's hope these good sports all got an A for this exercise.
Barracuda
By Dr Stan Galloway's Freshman Writing Class
Why me?!?
Moving with the velocity of a snail,
not caring about "writing" at all,
hating my sense of responsibility,
I am here, on a Friday, exhausted,
one blue shoe, one black shoe.
On a Friday meant for food—
when was the last time I ate
peanut brittle?—of this weekend
that started yesterday: crazy,
bubbly, don't even get me
started talking about the
silly string. All because of
Dr Galloway, that barracuda.
Funny.
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Thanks, Annmarie, for your guidance and drive. While I don't consider myself a barracuda, the poem is fun, and memorable.
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This sounds like it was a good experience for everyone.
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