A sweet, nice woman
She is a your average beauty
Tall Long
brunette hair Nice
smile
Single mother
Smaller than most
Not much to her
Too stressed out
Doing it all on her own
In this small town of
No
jobs
No
opportunity
Nothing
Everyday routine
It
gets very old
Wake up
Make breakfast
Take the kids to
school
Then she goes to work
Waves at her fellow employees
Says hi to everyone
Greets the children in the hallway
Puts on a fake smile
Hiding the stress of being a single mother
She hides it very well
Her first job
She’s a teacher at the elementary schoolhouse
She
teaches kindergarten
She enjoys
teaching
It reminds her of
the good old days
When he was still
around
They
weren’t a happy family
But
at least they were a family
She loves her
first job
Takes kids to the babysitters
She dreadfully goes to her next job
Second job
She’s a waitress at the local burger house
Standing
at the window
Serving
burgers fries and milkshakes
Missing
her kids
She
hates her second job
But
she must do it to make ends meet
Too stressed out
Doing it all on her own
No one to help her
Picks the kids up
Finally goes home
Done with the stress of the day
She makes dinner
Puts
the kids to sleep
Starts on her last job
Third job
She is a single mother
A housewife
Cleaning
Dishes
Laundry
Packs
the kids lunches for the next day
Then finally she gets to sleep
She stays exhausted
Doing it all on her own
No one to help her
Trying to prove them all wrong
Keeping her stress and worries sealed away
Not wanting others to know
It
is hard without him
It
is hard without anyone
It
is too hard
But she manages it
For
her kids
She makes end meet
For
her kids
She acts like it isn’t hard
For
her kids
Her kids are her motivation
She would do anything for them
Wake up
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
This prose poem is about my hometown on Lancaster, KY. I wrote it from this perspective because it was very common being a single mother in this town. In this small town, people tried to hide their problems and act as if their lives met the standard america dream expectation.
This is so interesting. I love that you with hold details about your characters past to draw the reader in and make them more interested.I also really like how you used spacing and formatting to add the the overall feel of the poem. The stair steps you've created mirror the listing and repetition in your poem. I think that the way you write about your home town says a lot about how you feel about it. This might be wrong nut you don't seem to have any attachment to of love from the town. Very well done!
ReplyDeleteSamantha,
ReplyDeleteYou do a good job of first introducing your character to us with physical description and then taking us through her typical day. In a town that doesn't offer many opportunities, this single mother must work more than one job, and I like how you contrasted the enjoyment that she feels as a kindergarten teacher---someone who smiles and waves at her coworkers---to the disgust she has for her second job. An important observation that you make here while taking us through her day is that domestic labor, like cooking, cleaning, and childcare, is equivalent to another full-time job, but it's the kind of labor that doesn't earn money unless you make it your profession. This journey through her daily life gives us the sense of exhausted drive on behalf of her family. Good work!