perpetual/persistent

Jennifer Chiou

About Jennifer Chiou

Grade: 10

Bio: Jennifer enjoys writing poetry and painting because these mediums allow her to express herself, and she also likes computer science because it is very engaging and fun.

What is your main source of inspiration?

My main source of inspiration is the people and environment around me. I also draw content from art, nature, my biology textbook, Thanksgiving traffic, the existence of my close friends' birthdays, and well-worded test questions.

What is your ideal writing environment?

My ideal writing environment is in my middle school's Spoken Word Poetry club classroom, with a fancy notebook in front of me which I will abandon in favor of the QuickMemo+ app on my 2015 $30 LG phone from Wal-Mart that I refuse to let go of to this day. The teacher gives us five song titles to make a poem out of. My best friend is sitting next to me laughing, and we are despairing because we do not know what to write. A literal poetry god visits us and my friend and I almost cry. I use her body as a shield from the poetry god's godly rays of light. At the end of the club meeting, when we're supposed to share our pieces, I hide in the bathroom internally screaming while my friend reads the poem I wrote out loud. It is a bad poem but the experience was fun. My friend manages to escape reading her poem out loud for the fifth week in a row. We go home, and I am motivated to write more.

What message do you hope to convey to the reader through your piece?

This piece was written with a youthful, frivolous tone to depict not only writer's block, but also a perceived loss of creativity or intelligence. Often, people may feel that they have "regressed" in terms of their abilities, especially in light of the current pandemic, but that may not be true. The cuts between the "scenes" of this poem tell two stories: one of a somewhat-frantic female trying to hold on to her storytelling ability, and the other of an intense race between a turtle and a rabbit filled with plot twists and plot holes. The turtle and rabbit story jumps around between locations, and the storyline becomes more and more chaotic as the poem goes on. In the end, the girl realizes that the poem/story was never about the rabbit or turtle––rather, it was about her clawing her way out of her creative rut. Although she does not succeed in overcoming her writer's block in the end, she realizes that the quality of her life is not determined by the quality of her work. This piece is meant to remind readers that not everything has to make sense or be complete. (It was also to present a reason for why the turtle was slow in the original turtle vs. rabbit children's story, since I believe that real-life turtles are actually quite fast).

can you tell

that i am running out of ideas—

and running,

running away—

this is a story

of a rabbit

and a turtle

and a cobblestone road

and no end in sight.

i cannot count the ways that it could go

but i can try.

and futility

sounds a whole lot like fragility—

but

slow

and steady

will win the race

and so

here i am,

counting, counting

on the stone,

on the brick-lined pavement graying in the sun;

footsteps

patter among the chirping of blue jays,

the rustle of the leaves—

and, maybe,

the turtle feels sad;

or the rabbit feels sad;

or the grass feels sad

and tired of being stepped on—

steps

echoing through the village,

as the rabbit tries to catch up—

at this point,

we all think we know the ending.

we don’t.

the rabbit, he buys a motorcycle

at the corner store;

wields engine and gas tank

like a machine gun

and uses it as such—

the turtle,

basking in the summer sun,

runs for the first time in his life—

running,

running away.

footsteps

patter among the screeching of wheels—

the turtle does not falter.

the turtle turns.

the turtle bears his arms and counts his blessings—

counts one,

two,

three—

and he waits

for the wind

to carry him away

like the seeds of a dandelion;

for a miracle

that will never come.

he is still counting.

the rabbit has not arrived.

why?

the motorcycle broke down.

he hit a rock and fell.

a volcano opened up beneath him and he fell into the fiery depths of hell.

and

futility

sounds a whole lot like fragility—

but

slow and steady

will win the race

and this

is not about the turtle

or the rabbit

or the gravel

or the concrete.

this is a story

of a girl

and a hammer

and building

a story

for herself.

FV Jennifer Chiou perpetual/persistent

Live Reading

Jennifer Chiou reads her free verse titled, "perpetual/persistent."

Photo Citations: Stefan Fluck, Brown Rabbit On Green Grass During Daytime, courtesy of Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/photos/usoJcs--nEk

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