Darfur

I hope many people went to hear El-Fadel Arbab speak last Tuesday about his experiences surviving the Darfur genocide. As for me, I was blown away. Having heard the stories and read the books, I thought I would be prepared. As it turns out, nothing can prepare you for the tears of a grown man reliving a nightmare before your eyes.
Walking away from the presentation, tightly clutching my Save Darfur T-shirt I was left with an insatiable desire to change the world, make a difference, simply do something, anything.
Well I'm not going to change the world over night, but I am going to keep thinking about what I can do. What I am going to do. I can write to President Obama to take action in Darfur, I can learn more about this, and other issues around the world, I can simply be appreciative of how truly lucky I am.
So what will you do? Let's start the conversation. Changing the world little by little, fulfilling our responsibilities as privileged people.
As my (first) contribution, here's a poem that reads the same left to right and top to bottom. The pink punctuation goes left to right and the green top to bottom.
Post your thoughts or reflections on El-Fedal, changing the world, being alive... Write anything because there are no rules here. Go for it.

Gould Academy Out Loud

I’m sitting outside of room 207, waiting for my math teacher to unlock the door, and usher me in to another hour and a half of numbers and learning. I’m a bit flustered, having already bustled frantically through two classes and though I don’t dislike math, as I clutch my binder which ominously threatens to vomit many weeks of notes across the tile floor, I admit that I’m relieved to have this moment to sit, head resting against the hard uneven wall, breathe, and sort through my thoughts.
Gould Academy is not a school for the faint of heart. Schedules are arranged so not a moment is put to waste. From classes we speed into sports, then from sports we dash into dinner, then from dinner we hasten to our home work.
At that point, my mind has become a reservoir of so much from the day, so many thoughts, ideas, interactions, feelings, I simply can not hold it all in my head. There is so little time to sit back and reflect, capture the moment, obey that fleeting notion of inspiration that competes for attention with my school work. In quiet moments, like now, where I suddenly, surprisingly, find myself hovering in the split second of transition:

I have to write.
And I am not alone.

Gould Academy Out Loud is an outlet for us writers amidst the Gould Community. An open environment for anyone and everyone who has something to say, to say it. Respond in a comment to this entry and set free your poetry, narratives or simply a collection of thoughts, anything goes. Don’t be afraid. Indulge your mind, reveal your soul. This is the Gould Academy Out Loud Writing Blog,

Write on.

URGENT.

April is national poetry month.
Lets get together and write...and eat cookies of course.
Be sure to check out the display in the library, maybe memorize something.

Here's a little something on the fly:

intent.

Prone to revolutionary exultation.
Declarations scare away
The reassembling of over sized notions
Bad battles of ignorance
What is honest?
Trust is something that holds tight
Indignation:

Pure
I am alive, wild
I am part of everywhere
But where does my being hear?
I will find a way to be, a satellite in the wind.
No rules will bind me.
Go within.
Stir.
Freedom will find you.

Food for thought.

I love how anonymous all
Are in the sky. All are insomniacs, all children are home,
Where are the adults? Who are the cities that gleam likes hope in the dark abyss.
What is no and what is yes? Lets all ignore the impending need to forget, we could all die
Hand in hand. Then what is my cordia gesture to you. Your hand missing from my own is like an emty shell. Hollow and hoping. I will never be afraid to question, and rebel against implementation. I will never be afraid to crawl inside your heart and haunt your every thought. I promise that I there, already. I imagine loosing you to the horizon and cryptically smile, debilitating and paralyzing I would give my good grace to a tortured sea. In searching for yo I find the empty that I hate
I know your eyes like they are the dark,
I want to find them now.

A story over soup

This Blog is empowerment.

It is meant to make writing more available, more accessible, more frequented.

Be honest, don't be afraid, be bold.

The hopes of this blog is to connect our community and publish pieces in the literary paper.

This way we are not restricted to dead lines, writing is something you can do all the time.

It's something to share.

Be looking for random prompts and respond to posts, most importantly be free.

Ready.

Set.

Write.