English 2367

Commonplace

[syerington]

One man had a heart, a pill under his tongue- a pill, a dog a broomstick.

Nick Flynn, “seven testimonies (redacted)” (via syerington)

This quote makes you realize the confusion and torture of being a POW

[syerington]

The one who pries his mother’s fingers from beer cans, one who wires pickups and ditches them in canyons, one who swaggers and stares stone-inducing stares before crossing over and driving to the hole

James Hoch “The Court of Forgetting” (via syerington)

This quote is thought-provoking in the sense that it makes you realize that everyone can have some sort of baggage that's hidden by their outward appearances. 

[theoakwa]

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

"Howl" Allen Ginsberg (via theoakwa) This is such an iconic and meaningful opening line. (via poetryofresistance)

This quote makes you think about who Ginsberg is describing as "the best minds of my generation"

[aldengardiner]

"And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools."

Martin Luther King Jr. "A Time to Break Silence"

A speech protesting American involvement in the Vietnam War

[aldengardiner]

When I think of the word #home,

I cannot decide what it means.

Is it a place? A person?

No. #Home is an #emotion.  A feeling.

It isn’t tangible. I cannot grasp it.

It’s in me.

Happiness, #sadness, #anger, #loneliness, #belonging.

I have felt everything in this intangible #home of mine.

Home is the where my #emotions are free to run

Without #resistance. Without #discrimination.

I will never be lost.

I am my own #home.

[evkenn17]

"There are so many roots to the tree of anger that sometimes the branches shatter before they bear."

-Audre Lorde, “Who Said It Was Simple” (via evkenn17)

This quote highlights the need for unity among those fighting for a common cause to avoid disagreement within the group. 

[aldengardiner]

native daughter: I am the Gulf Coast.

-Natasha Trethewey, "Liturgy to the Mississippi Gulf Coast"

[aldengardiner]

I tell you it was necessary: violence had to preface such beauty.

-Ricky Laurentiis, "No Ararat"

[aldengardiner]

"I tried to find myself all night"

-Nick Flynn, "Seven Testimonies"

[aldengardiner]

"My enemies ride jets to parties. They are not tied up in pens in Guantanamo Bay."

-Aracelis Girmay, "Arroz Poetica"

[aldengardiner]

"Do you know anything about your people?

-Ross Gay, "Some Instructions"

[aldengardiner]

"He will tell you the distance between heartbreak and rage."

-Ross Gay, "Within Two Weeks"

[aldengardiner]

"Why would anyone leave their native land?"

-Terrance Hayes, "What I am"

[aldengardiner]

"Though it is probably silver-colored the chain appears conveniently as the whitest element of the black-and-white"

- Steve Scafidi, "Onlookers with the Burning Body of Jesse Washington"

[aldengardiner]

"what we might have seen, if we had looked"

-Dana Levin, "Techno"

[aldengardiner]

"the collective dream of the rich land and the violent wanting"

- Dana Levin, "Techno"

[aldengardiner]

“until someone calls time and they’re done, and everything becomes what it was.”

- Hoch, "The Court of Forgetting"