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14. Procrastination. If you had more time, you’d be able to put it off longer. What do you put off to the last moment? Why? Tell a story about how you just barely got something done in time – or didn’t.
Alternate: Splat! Use that word in a story or a poem.

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Firefly Dance

Addie's picture
Submitted by Addie on January 9, 2008 - 21:29.

Firefly Dance

By Adelicia Vander Els
Lake Champlain Waldorf High School, Grade 9

A lone firefly dances on an old man's grave,
And from the darkness another joins him.
Soon thousands of fireflies dance upon his old man bones,
Singing their fire dance song.

They spiral upwards,
Carrying his soul
Upon their spark-tipped wings.
The firefly tribe illuminates the cold and frosty night,
Making light to show his spirit
dance a dead man's jig.

They reach the heavens and leave him there,
And as the morning light draws near,
All one thousand disappear.

slunden's picture

hello!

Submitted by slunden on February 10, 2008 - 20:15.

Hey Addie,

I'm Suzanne, a senior English major with a concentration in poetry and a writing tutor at the University of Vermont. I think Firefly Dance is a beautiful poem...you do a great job balancing a concrete yet dream-like image (the fireflies dancing) with the more abstract idea of the fireflies acting as a sort of divine escort. I found the lines "They spiral upwards, / Carrying his soul / Upon their spark-tipped wings" especially effective (and lovely).
The rhyming in the last three lines also worked really well, and I'm wondering if you'd want to play around with rhyme or close rhyme (like "night" and "spirit") in the rest of the poem. It seems a bit fussy, but the grammar in the line "Making light to show his spirit / dance a dead man's jig" is throwing me a little...I'm not sure what it is...maybe "How to dance a dead man's jig"? Or "Dancing a dead man's jig"?

Keep up the poetry - you have a definite feel for it!
Suzanne

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