Lit Writ
In the LIbrary
Editor’s Note:
In the coming weeks, The Link will be featuring exercise poems produced by creative writing workshops. Below is a poem from David McGimpsey’s ENGL 425 Advanced Poetry workshop.
For this poem, students were asked to re-write a pre-existing poem of theirs to the tune of a popular song of their choosing. This poem is to the tune of “Surfin’ USA” by the Beach Boys.
“In the Library”
If everybody was a student:
national college.
Then everybody’d be studious,
and hardly ever move.
We’d see them raising their eyelids:
They’re so heavy too,
those weighty, weighty pale eyelids
all around the school.
We’d find them reading in cubicles (inside, outside, library)
also on the lawn, (inside, outside, library)
in Starbucks and Timmy’s, (inside, outside, library)
lined up in the hall, (inside, outside, library)
even when they’re walking, (inside, outside, library)
sometimes driving too, (inside, outside)
everybody’d be studying
all around the school.
They’ll all plan to hit the gym;
they’re gonna start real soon…
Just after their midterms
or Christmas break would do.
They’ll use the stairs to their classrooms.
Build their muscle that way.
Tell the doctor their workout’s
in the library.
Yeah, their heads are foggy, (inside, outside, library)
exams are starting soon. (inside, outside, library)
Living with the bookshelves, (inside, outside, library)
with open textbooks too, (inside, outside, library)
all around their laptops (inside, outside, library)
in this country’s school, (inside, outside, library)
everybody’s still working
in the library.
Everybody’s still studying
in the library
Everybody’s still sitting
in the library
Yeah, everybody’s still sleeping
in the library.
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 14, published November 16, 2010.
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