CRWR 106

  The night is cold and black in the musty New England room, Curled up in bed by the warm candlelight, Thoughts of the golden rays of summer days go jogging through her mind. She is the picture of beauty and serenity lounging beside the pool, Head thrown back in peaceful bliss, gracious as always, Watching dragonflies twirl […]

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Gracious Rabbit, Pickles. Jogging through the open field, With me. Hopping from place to place. Pickles, My rabbit’s name is, Pickles. I know it seems odd, But I take him on jogs. My jogging rabbit, Pickles. Thankful. Thankful for my Pickles. My perfect Pickles gives me tickles, Like dragonflies in my tummy. It feels great […]

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Some Trees   These are amazing: each Joining a neighbor, as though speech Were a still performance. Arranging by chance   To meet as far this morning From the world as agreeing With it, you and I Are suddenly what the trees try   To tell us we are: That their merely being there Means […]

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You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or the silence after lightning before it says its names – and then the clouds’ wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, and […]

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“Lord, it is time. Let the great summer go, Lay your long shadows on the sundials, And over harvest piles let the winds blow. Command the last fruits to be ripe; Grant them some other southern hour, Urge them to completion, and with power Drive final sweetness to the heavy grape. Who’s homeless now, will […]

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You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums, or the silence after lightning before it says its names — and then the clouds’ wide-mouthed apologies. You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone. Rain will come, a gutter filled, and […]

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I was fully aware that I was of interest to the interns because of the ways in which doctors had worked on and altered my body. But I wasn’t a car or an experimenter, and I didn’t want to be regarded as such. Eventually, Dr. Elliot understood and complied. “You’re all grown up now,” he […]

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But now one summer later, I was hanging out with the popular girls. I was wearing their clothes, which I realized was part of the problem. I was not like my friends.   In Emily Rapp’s memoir, “Poster Child”, we see a first person point of view being used. From reading these chapters, we see […]

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“…the summer I agreed to do things I didn’t want to do and laughed at jokes that weren’t funny. I had just turned sixteen, and what I wanted more than anything else in life was to be beautiful. I didn’t care about being smart, successful, or good. In fact, I believed that beauty was the […]

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I had agreed to wear this skirt because it was the summer of 1990: the summer I agreed to do things I didn’t want to do and laughed at jokes that weren’t funny.  I had just turned sixteen, and what I wanted more than anything else in life was to be beautiful.  I didn’t care […]

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Openmouthed, Ashley looked at Melissa. Melissa stared at her. Ashley shut her mouth, stepped out of the car, and slid into the backseat with me. She looked up at Melissa and then scooped up the puke with Melissa’s expensive sweater. I felt as though I had won some unnamed battle, that this round in the invisible […]

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My face burned. I adored the vets, but I was not a man or a war veteran. I was a girl on the verge of becoming a woman (pg. 112) Emily Rapp uses first person in her memoir, Poster Child. The use of first person is important because it is really a great technique to draw a […]

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“That  girl was trying to tell me something, but whatever she had to say, I didn’t want to hear it.” In Poster child, Emily Rapp does an amazing job of articulating the feelings of herself and other characters in past tense and juxtaposing them with the feelings and ideas she currently holds. Doing so allows […]

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“Stop it!” I’d scream at her, releasing all of my rage on the most convenient and undeserving target. “Stop looking at me!” Whereas I had once commanded her attention, it now annoyed me when she monitored my gait; it threatened my elaborate and carefully constructed plan of passing as normal. But even as I resented […]

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“I wanted all signs of my body’s idiosyncrasies and deficiencies to be promptly hidden if they could not be permanently removed. At the same time, I knew that no matter how well the leg worked or how clean the hinges or the new foot, I could never have what I wanted, which was the leg […]

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“In skiing, I found the sport in which my wishes for speed, agility, and grace were fulfilled. I was taught a distinctive skiing style: The foot was “educated” to steer the ski in a specific way; I learned to anticipate each turn and adjust my body, skis, and outriggers accordingly, producing a fluid, graceful motion.” […]

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Mary Rossi “After so much struggle and agony over my own physical appearance, I should have been that much more compassionate toward others who struggled with similar issues. The reverse was true. I had numerous flaws, but in what I thought was a clear sign of my superiority, I had managed to hide them all. […]

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I believe that deep in my memory I hold this image of my mother behind the glass, sending me a kiss and looking at me as if I were the most precious and beautiful baby in the world. Although these circumstance of my birth are factual, it’s difficult for me to imagine the scenes: being […]

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While Dad was preaching at his church that Sunday, Mom padded down the hallway in her pink bathrobe to look at me through the glass window of the newborns’ room. She felt other mothers looking at her, searching her eyes, and she stared back at them. She had longed for a redheaded girl; I had […]

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