Sarah's Life

     This was a fun assignment. I tend to use allusion in most of my writing; so for a whole poem to be based in allusion without quoting, and especially for specifically focusing on songs...this was too easy. Although, technically it wasn't, because the hard part was deciding which songs to allude to. It was supposed to be a song of our generation that other generations might not catch, but written in such a way that they understood what the song was about. After a careful survey of possible candidates to reference(about forty), I finally whittled it down to ten, because if one is good, then more is much better...particularly if they're mainly country, which only like two other people in the course listen to. But they know that I tend to allude to pop culture in my poems, so that made it easier. But Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood were all way too obvious, though they all have tons of story songs.
     Also, it was almost like writing a song, blending all these different scenes into the larger story, which was really fun. If you stack them on top of each other into a literal timeline, the details don't all mesh, obviously, but just taking the main threads, it seemed to work out okay.
     Allusions classmates caught: "Boondocks", by Little Big Town; "Independence Day" by Martina McBride; "We Danced" from Brad Paisley, "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlton; "The Letter(Love, Me)" by Collin Raye, "Fireflies" by Owl City and "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. They missed "The Little Girl" by John Michael Montgomery, "Travelin' Soldier" from the Dixie Chicks, and "Vanilla Twilight" by Owl City. I suppose Avril Lavigne's "Darlin'" and Jason Michael Carroll's "Hurry Home" could be implied, too.

It happened out in the boondocks

where y’all all learn about life,

lust, discipline and Jesus Christ. –

Sarah’s folks shot each other, burned down their house,

that Fourth of July she was eight.

Lamberts took her in and raised her right –

Ten years later Sarah’s a waitress

at the diner, she played piccolo in the high school band,

and met a boy waiting for the Army bus.

They exchanged letters, fell in love,

But his return was wooden, not with that velvet box –

Dave was sweeping up the bar early one morning,

when Sarah walked through that door.

He told her “We’re closed, now, ma’am,”

She said, “Yeah, but I lost my purse-“

Don’t worry, she got it back

But not until they danced across those weathered floorboards –

Now I’m downtown, walking quickly homebound

with Vanessa Carlton piano chords in my head,

Darlin’, I wish you were here,

Helping take care of Grandpa Dave now she’s dead…

He told her, weeping there,

“I dunno how long I’ll be…”

I left the hospice in a milkshake-colored mood,

And began this email to say please come home soon.

Because nothing is ever quite as it seems,

I realize, clearing out this house that built me.

Love you - Dad.