This project introduces poetry to wider audiences by presenting poetry in collaboration with design on UWG buses and in other areas—sharing the talents of students in the UWG Creative Writing and Art Programs while making daily commutes more interesting and inspiring. It also allows for creative students to engage in unique collaborative experiences together and widen the perspectives of the UWG community of students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

Don't Trust Screening Tests (Full Poem)

By Phoebe Huckabay, B.A. English / Illustrated by Bethany Blackman, B.F.A. Art

Half dreamt in the smallest sea
I gurgle and blink lidless eyes
in time to a frantic heart.
I feel the warmth of a hand on my mother’s shoulder
through red rope and a paper gown.
My father paid $429
for 22 minutes in a steel bright room
and a notice of execution.
Blue gloved fingers held the words
Incompatible with life
to cut scalpel neat
through hope and a swollen belly.
A woman with clinical pity
offered my father an axe
to sign his child's death warrant.
Wrapped in red thread and swaddled in salt,
I drink from veins and nibble my cradles heart.
I have my first taste of cold
as it creeps through muffled walls.
My parents’ pain
lights the first sparks of humanity
drifting in the wisp of a half done soul.
With webbed fingers and curled toes
I strike at the shores
of a shrinking sea
and speak a forgotten language.
Telling them,
“I am here.”

 

Grandma's Funeral (Full Poem)

By Emily Moon, B.S. Anthropology / Illustrated by Cassidi Thomas, B.F.A. Art

After the many couched waiting room
After my Dad and Great Uncle circled like hawks like tigers like prizefighters
After the close family prayer where I held a stranger’s hand and my mom stepped out
After sitting straight in the iced pew
            (second row and suffocated silence. I’m the pride of the Baptist Church)
After Amazing Grace bounced around my corked head
After the preacher reminded us that we’d better know God before we were in her place
After walking out into boiling rain I wanted to swallow
My father’s wife leaned over and smiled at my face
Pointed a green finger at the orator’s son, whose name I don’t remember
“You should marry that boy. His Daddy owns a glass company.”