Tropology: The ENG 250 Blog

By Faith Brammer When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look…

Read More Read More

By Ash Moen Sometimes a writer will write a story or poem and to them it is fairly simple and straightforward. They don’t think much into it. But oftentimes there are underlying meanings we weave into our words unintentionally. Thus, different readers can interpret the work in different ways and find all sorts of hidden meanings that the writer did not intend. It is an amazing part of poetry and writing–the ability to find new meanings in stories and poems….

Read More Read More

By Halima Elmajdoubi Even before I learned how to read, I was an avid lover of story. Some of my earliest memories involve being lulled to sleep by books, planting in me an early passion for the written word that has only grown stronger over time. However, while I have always loved to read, there is an undeniable line drawn for me at poetry. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t as though I dislike all poetry. On the contrary, I’ve been…

Read More Read More

By Isabela Bernstein I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life. Not least that time in the chemistry lab when I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name, and handed them over. O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn’t shake off the…

Read More Read More

By Erin Ross “Love’s As Warm As Tears”  Love’s as warm as tears, Love is tears: Pressure within the brain, Tension at the throat, Deluge, weeks of rain, Haystacks afloat Featureless seas between Hedges, where once was green.  Love’s as fierce as fire, Love is fire: All-sorts-Infernal heat Clinkered with greed and pride, Lyric desire, sharp-sweet, Laughing, even when denied, And that empyreal flame Whence all loves came. Love’s as fresh as spring, Love is spring: Bird-song in the air,…

Read More Read More

By Ethan Brooker “Bar Napkin Sonnet #11” Things happen when you drink too much mescal. One night, with not enough food in my belly, he kept on buying.   I’m a girl who’ll fall damn near in love with gratitude and, well, he was hot and generous and so the least that I could do was let him kiss me, hard and soft and any way you want it, beast and beauty, lime and salt—sweet Bacchus’ pards— and when his…

Read More Read More

By Miranda Miller somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when…

Read More Read More

By Kasey Ackert “The Chimney Sweeper” When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!” So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved, so I said, “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white…

Read More Read More