Engl 11 12/11/23

Mon, Dec 11, 2023

Assignment: Given to Rust

Tue, Dec 12, 2023

Assignment: Using Given to Rust as a model, write an original poem using the same concepts and theme. Consider how time changes a person.  Are changes that come with age positive or negative? bananas Try to choose images that stand out. Consider figurative language as a way to make your poem have more depth. Give it a thoughtful title.


Upload to Google Classroom by midnight on Wed, Dec 13.

Given to Rust by Vievee Francis

Every time I open my mouth my teeth reveal

more than I mean to. I can’t stop tonguing them, my teeth.

Almost giddy to know they’re still there (my mother lost hers)

but I am embarrassed nonetheless that even they aren’t

pretty. Still, I did once like my voice, the way it moved

through the gap in my teeth like birdsong in the morning,

like the slow swirl of a creek at dusk. Just yesterday

a woman closed her eyes as I read aloud, and

said she wanted to sleep in the sound of it, my voice.

I can still sing some. Early cancer didn’t stop the compulsion

to sing but

there’s gravel now. An undercurrent

that also reveals me. Time and disaster. A heavy landslide

down the mountain. When you stopped speaking to me

what you really wanted was for me to stop speaking to you. To

stifle the sound of my voice. I know.

Didn’t want the quicksilver of it in your ear.

What does it mean

to silence another? It means I ruminate on the hit

of rain against the tin roof of childhood, how I could listen

all day until the water rusted its way in. And there I was

putting a pan over here and a pot over there to catch it. 

Wed, Dec 13, 2023

Fri, Dec 15, 2023