This poem by Laura Eve Engel is the poem that has everyone at Words on Fire so worried about the future of their festival. Will they be able to provide a convincing answer to the issue--one that reassures everyone that their judges know their poetic devices?
The Whole Story
In the attic, I find piles of small things
in boxes. Like this: a photo of my first friend
in our new town, her sharp laugh, the spools
of printer paper we used to make our secret
plans. How she hated her brother, how when
his face crumpled in a sob she laughed with glee.
The phrase I was trying on, how to be cruel, floats up
out of the attic dust and unsettles me.
Then this: my own brother, only three
and clumsy in his little limbs, wanting to join us
as we hover over our games. Only slightly
older, there I am, wondering what it might be like
to laugh mercilessly, then trying it out
on him. Then there are these
empty boxes where a memory should be:
whatever words I said to the other first graders
the day my mom brought my brother to school
to visit me, whatever made them point at him
and tease and tease. The story part of the story
has gone missing. What’s left is one scene—
my classmates crowd his still-small face
like petals on a daisy, and laugh until they transform
into the sound itself—which I can still hear
now, which drowns out the other sounds,
which is why I can’t remember why I did it
or what I did, just how I knew it wasn’t right.
Laura Eve Engel
To settle the Words on Fire controversy, you will need to complete several tasks. First, recall what you know about the characteristics of short stories and poems. Read "The Whole Story" with these characteristics in mind and evaluate the entry’s status as a poem, deciding whether it is indeed a short story or a poem. Finally, write a brief analysis that summarizes the entry, identifies its form, and explains why you consider “The Whole Story” a short story or a poem. To support your claims about the entry’s form and status, provide specific examples from the text. You can include direct quotes from the piece as part of your written analysis, or you can mark up a copy of the entry, using lines and arrows and notes to show what parts of the entry support your decision.
When you are ready to start working on your project, click the Activity button and follow the guidelines in the Deciding Vote worksheet. To see how your work on this assignment will be graded, click the Rubric button.
