Aurora Magazine 2019

From Le Fer 145

Austin Somers

The oaks swayed to the ballad of the wind, leaves spinning like a ballet of paper flames. I was late to Workshop Wednesday so the professor paired me up with Whitney. “Personally, I prefer only a little alliteration per verse. Otherwise, it’s perverse!” she proclaimed. Did I mention she also prefers we call her “Whit”? On account of her cleverness, of course. “I’m also having a hard time wrapping my head around the image in the seventh stanza,” she said, frowning. At this point I found myself trying to wrap my head around the image of her actually wrapping her head around the image, grabbing her oily blond hair and stretching her face like a pizza-dough anaconda coiling its way around a picture. “Oh, and your rhymes are mistimed, and your dialogue’s a slog. I’d dial it down a tad. But overall – not bad!” As if this ludicrous critique wasn’t enough, the professor told us we had to revise our poems by the end of the day.

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