Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

OFF THE HOLLOW STEM

This semester, SPACEmag contributors have been responding to regular writing prompts as a way to practice their writing and stay creative. The following is a collective found poem made up of lines from those writing prompt responses. The SPACEmag contributors listed above got online together and in the space of exactly 20 minutes scrolled through all the writing prompt responses so far this semester, chose lines that resonated with them and then arranged them into a poem. Everyone was free to select and move around lines as they saw fit, and for the entire 20 minutes, without anyone even speaking, a poem grew, lines appearing and disappearing, jumping up and down the screen, multiple minds working silently in tandem, until the timer sounded and everyone gave a collective sigh.

Whether you, the reader, think the poem coheres and even speaks to a collective feeling among students in this particular moment, we leave it to you to decide.

Morning bites softly:

Beads splash everywhere

A snap, a gasp, a minstrel gone rogue

Coiled at hand yet often misled

You’re gone. But you aren’t actually dead

Off a hollow stem

Everything’s a blur

Hand me that telescope

Just somewhere far away

Your pitiful palace

Brown eyes fluttering

Ice cream sundaes

J’aime les arcs-en-ciel

We’re messy, speckling blue

Saturday night

When dark comes, so do the men

The end of my midnight mischiefs

Darkness welcomes those who are lost

Breath as symphony

I think I need to sit down

Before I tip over

How could I afford to black out and forget?

“Tell me my friend.”

“Why, might you ask?”

“Now that I come to think of it…”

“Is everything okay dude?”

“I think we’re a lot stronger too.”

Headspaces fill with darkness

And I need it to stop

Water glass, olive and smooth

A pop in the fuse box

University textbooks

Moldy certificate

Money you’ll never get back

All reminders of the fleeting moments that were, as some say,

The best of your life

I lie unmoving, trying to find peace and serenity

Who am I when the lights are off?

A child holding back tears

So you want to whittle?

In one harsh stroke, before I can shield my eyes,

You, fire. You feed!

He misses you

The problem was that they wanted them again, guava candies

That’s what it looked like to me

The adrenaline fades

“Her two had been candy-magnets”

The machine sang at her

Praising her for her sacrifice:

The mass left behind of a dead star

Slightly falling apart

Are we at risk?

I used to think that an eclipse was when another planet passed in front of the sun

So much mass

flickering fast, growing brighter

Your parents are insecure

Clueless dancing

Not “Party Princess for Hire”

So before you wish for it to always be light

Or write some sad poetry about the night

“Pina colada, cosmo, margarita…”

Plastic monotony

Flowed endlessly into their hands

The remnants of happy memories, scattered and long gone

Time slows and burns

A concept. We’re messy. All humans are

Turns out they’re alright

Collage by Aspen Crick