Free verse rules at the U.S. Naval Academy, an unlikely proving ground for young poets finding their sea legs.
For the past 20 summers, the academy's creative writing journal Labyrinth has been the means of escape for the collective right brains of the Brigade. This month, the publication again features the selected poetry of midshipmen, selected by the midshipmen and published by the midshipmen.
"I was amazed at the volume of the stuff," says Lt. Chad Dorr, a faculty sponsor of the Labyrinth. Given their regimented environment, the midshipmen follow no rules in creative writing. Poetry is, after all, always out of uniform.
"It's almost exclusively free verse," Dorr says, "which is symbolic of why they are writing."
For last year's edition, a staff of midshipmen waded through 250 entries. Typically, the Labyrinth staff dismisses "poems of complaint," as Dorr calls them. "There's more to life than complaining about this place."
Sir, yes, sir. These college students -- bound for commissions in the Navy and Marines -- write of love, never knowing it or knowing it all too well. They write of war, having never experienced it, but preparing themselves in this other way. They write of desire -- and death. They write of Carmen Miranda and Cabo San Lucas in December and "gentle hands upon my hips."
They write alone or in creative writing class. Traditionally, the academy's closest brush with poetry has been "Table Salt." On command, plebes (first-year students) might recite the rocky meter found in Table Salt's "What time is it?":
Sir, I am greatly embarrassed and deeply humiliated
That due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control,
The inner workings and hidden mechanisms of my chronometer are in such inaccord
With the great sidereal movement
That I cannot with any degree of accuracy state the correct time
Sir.
Generations of literary scholars have wondered what is meant by "the great sidereal movement" and the equally profound "hidden mechanisms." But, alas, poetry is watery. Meaning is born hidden, then peeks out also by the writer's hand. Other times, poetry asks simply impossible questions. In midshipman William Westmoreland's 1996 poem "Watch Baseball Games," the writer ponders the afterlife of a dead friend:
What do you do during the day?
Is there work to do?
Time to play,
Or do you just hang out?
If I were you I would sit above Chicago
And watch baseball games
What follows is a sampler from Labyrinth -- poems full of sound and fury and signifying something:
Now We're All Bastards
By William Westmoreland
When we were young it was easy.
We all played baseball and you were the coach.
We won together and lost together.
After games we ate together and laughed together.
When I was fourteen things got intense.
Dan and Jason were lost for words.
She left but we all stuck it out.
Three of us and one of you.
We were all on different teams now.
Sometimes one would win and the rest would lose.
It was not the same when we ate, all in a different room.
We could have stuck it out but no one had the heart.
Now I am at college and am lucky if I ever talk to you.
It is good I have my brothers or there wouldn't be any memories.
I guess I don't really know what to say anymore.
Do you even know who this is?
Bombshell
By Shannon Callahan
Carmen, the Brazilians must miss you
Vibrant star who shot to the north
Spangled explosion on a ripe stage
An electric fruit salad rhumba
We loved how you put Groucho in his place
And spilled the splendor of a full spectrum on B & W
(Before Ted Turner was even born)
At four-foot-eight danced ten feet tall
Strawberry extravaganza with lime and lilac
Dazzled us with the enormity of it -- the absurdity of it!
And how did you walk in those things?
Flashing citrus eyes may reflect Rio
But when your lacquered cocktail shock wave burst the screen
Miss Miranda, we ate it up.
Untitled
By Mandy Rawcliffe
If this is to be my story
then I need a critic
am I just a confused author
or did I write this in a daze
How do I question
what I myself wrote
I want to trust my story
yet I feel it needs new and different chapters
when do you know when to change
the plot line or the characters
who can be the critic
who do you trust with your story
will he read the words
just skim the pages
or simply observe what is to be seen
do I keep writing behind all these tears
who will dry these tears
and curl up by the fire
with a good book
of my life
of me.
Source: Labyrinth (1996, 1997), the U.S. Naval Academy
Walls
Walls.
Cold, hard stone and thick,
forbidding glass
Herded through this corral
like animals.
Don't look at his face
Or hers.
That's not done around here!
It's your turn now.
State your number not
your names.
That's not needed around here!
Do your business quickly, hurry.
Don't look at her face.
She doesn't look at you.
It's too cold for emotion here.
It hits these walls and the warmth dies.
Love, concern, caring those don't exist around here.
Michael F. James
Pub Date: 8/18/97
