To round out 2009, I want to share two more poems—the subjects of which came to mind over the past few weeks while I was getting ready for the holidays and visiting my parents for Christmas. Not surprisingly, one good and one bad, as is fitting for this time of the year.
Wherever you are, I hope 2010 is your best one yet!
***
Eden
As usual, she began this creation
Behind schedule: a carefully planted
Plot of flannel and cotton,
Received just a little late,
A flowing checkerboard
Of rose and bluebell and lilac.
Golden pinwheels twirl sun spots
Skittering and dancing across its surface.
Cut and basted, stitched and batted -
She labored over this fabric,
Embossing it with daisies
Stemming from white thread.
At bedtime I slip under this garden
Of blooms. Even though I’m so far
From home, she still manages to
Keep me safe and warm.
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Allison, December 31st 2009 |
Tags: family, out of the box, personal
Posted in Poetry
While everyone is compiling their year-end (and decade-end) best-of lists, I thought it might be a good idea to take another look at this piece. While The September Issue wasn’t the best movie I saw this year, it was certainly one of the most though-provoking, especially as a member of the print media.
Almost immediately after seeing it, I started writing this. What can I say? It left me with a strong opinion of Anna Wintour. While I put it aside afterward—mostly out of a sense of, who am I to critique Vogue?—rereading it now makes a lot more sense than it did then as print continues to suffer.
So while this isn’t a straight-up movie review like my previous post on The Bourne Ultimatum, it still reminds me of something I would have written in college—but instead of turning it in to an editor at the DTH, I would have submitted it to one of my professors in the comm studies department.
***
Vogue and I never really had a relationship. When I was in high school (and long before I ever knew I’d end up working in the world of magazines), I picked up a few issues when I realized I was getting too old for Seventeen and wanted a different source for pretty clothes. But all it taught me was that there was a class of people I could never dream of joining. They lived in New York, vacationed in places like Sag Harbor and Saint Tropez, and wore clothes by designers I couldn’t even pronounce. The only piece of information I retained from those pages is that there are three Miller sisters, who all married into royalty—the design, philanthropic and literal varieties.
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Allison, December 19th 2009 |
Tags: career, class issues, feminism, movie review, ponderings, the media
Posted in Newer Essays
Since I slacked on posting last week, I have a two-fer this week. And thankfully, for my convenience, they’re part of the same document.
The reason why is that they’re both columns I wrote as audition pieces for the editorial page of the DTH. Every semester, there would be writers, typically from the general student population and not from the DTH staff, who helmed a column one day each week. Most of them were your typical college writers, trying to push boundaries with lots of talk about sex and such. And at points, I thought about giving it a shot myself, just because. As a Californian going to school in North Carolina, I was a bit of an oddity there…or so my friends made it seem. So I thought I might have some interesting thoughts to share.
And here’s where I started.
***
Before I begin, there’s something I must let you all know.
I am in love with the pets.com sock puppet.
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Allison, December 9th 2009 |
Tags: bay area, daily tar heel, DTH, humor, personal, quirks, stereotypes, the south
Posted in Old Stories
