{"id":1133,"date":"2018-05-02T21:31:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T21:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=1133"},"modified":"2024-08-05T17:07:27","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T17:07:27","slug":"wordplay","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/the-words-may-2018\/wordplay\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordplay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Harrington ’19<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Ben\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This month we’re especially excited to feature the creative work of Ben LeBlanc \u201920, starting next semester as a new Associate Editor of The Words<\/em>! Ben started writing in third grade with a full length “Michigan Chillers” fan-fiction series, and now half of his poems are about how much he hates doing laundry. His long term goal is to publish a work of experimental poetry interpreting old Japanese academic texts into English. Welcome to The Words<\/em>, Ben!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Shovel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m
<\/span>scooping beards
<\/span>ripe out of the hilltop
<\/span>you, exposing tumbling mouths you
<\/span>need to find out yourself
<\/span>how the sky uncovers pockets
<\/span>pushed into wishful hands by rogue roots
<\/span>they catch the light like tunnels
<\/span>caught devouring streams of bolted seats
<\/span>little suitcases and tapping fingers
<\/span>on windows, wet skin-peeled bandages
<\/span>all at once, ripping
<\/span>day dreams across a lateral cave
<\/span>undealt weight of
<\/span>mountain
<\/span>I\u2019m<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

feverish
<\/span>shoveling pounds
<\/span>of swampy self-affirmation
<\/span>asking understand to a comforter
<\/span>buried deep into my chattering mouth
<\/span>I swim caverns of gripped books and backpacks
<\/span>dripping missed calls into toothy constructs
<\/span>and you, yards west in a shed slanting
<\/span>off an oily, peeling backdrop
<\/span>you know I\u2019ll dig, bring
<\/span>a splinter home
<\/span>withdraw<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

to streams
<\/span>of silent groundwater
<\/span>and kneel
<\/span>and cup the fresh between my lips<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Harrington ’19 This month we’re especially excited to feature the creative work of Ben LeBlanc \u201920, starting next semester as a new Associate Editor of The Words! Ben started writing in third grade with a full length “Michigan Chillers” fan-fiction series, and now half of his poems are about how much he hates doing laundry. His […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":0,"parent":1125,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1133"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7535,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1133\/revisions\/7535"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}