Reading through both the Kearny and the Bryant readings, The Black Automaton and Unexplained Presence, I noticed that Kearny's writing, while very deep and layered with meaning that brings attention to social changes in the 1970's, is still very poetic. I don't mean in word choice, but in design. The writing has stanzas and multiple parts, each part being a poem. Conversely, Bryant's writing is story-oriented, it's written like a book, with paragraphs. This mode of writing always feels like the best way to send a message to the readers, rather than writing poems (though the poems may have some cool design ideas, like some of Kearny's words that he connects with arrows).
I wrote my short story about a place I know quite well, the defunct Northville Psychiatric Hospital.
cited: Fox News
A Night at NPH (Not Neil Patrick Harris)
Nestled in the woods, not to far from the road is no mere defunct commune. It's central building was once a hotel for the sick, traumatized, and lost children developed by our "perfect" society. Now it served as a blemish just over the tree lines of the new subdivisions developed around the commune, I was fairly sure my mother was living in one of those subdivisions now, being forced to look at the reminder of servitude poking it's head from above the trees. The building's windows stared out across the urban sprawl, gazing as blankly as it's patients twenty years ago. From the topmost floor, one could gaze out through the busted out eyes and look across southern Michigan. One could see the bright lots of dealerships on Michigan Avenue, and on the clearest nights, you could see the flashing lights of the Ambassador Bridge that connected Windsor to Detroit poking it's arches above the horizon. An avenue and a bridge, both roads could be seen from the isolated tower.
Looking down from the perch eight stories up, I saw the other buildings in the commune sprawled across the unkempt grounds. Debris littered the waist high grass growing in the fields where tenets used to enjoy their outdoors hours of freedom. Flower patches, soccer pitches, paths that connected the buildings, all covered in grass and lost to time. Arterial roads clogged by the cholesterol of nature. On the ground, there was no escape from the putrid smell wafting up from the tunnels beneath the grounds, veins connecting each organ of the once living commune. Twenty years of collecting rainwater and medical waste, as well as serving as housing for rodents, had allowed mold, asbestos, remains to stew into the most nauseous smell that could enter your nostrils.
The smell of death didn't mean that the land had been claimed by the past. One organ, the easternmost one, still puffed smoke out of it's smokestacks, occasionally roaring with the sound of generators. Though the other organs had been shut down, the city had decided to transplant the power plant and keep it a functioning part of the city. The westernmost organ lay beaten and battered, as if it had taken a fatal punch to the cranium. More than half the building had caved in under the weight of countless winters of heavy Michigan snowfall without grounds keepers to sweep heavy snows off roofs. Classrooms had collapsed in on themselves like our economy, though a new beauty was literally growing through the destruction and rubble. Weeds had grown between the fallen support beams, between the shattered blackboards that lay shattered on the ground, and between the floor boards of the gym, who's ceiling was still intact. Here, on the sides of the thirty foot tall cranium, where the thoughtless could exchange thoughts and fun, was the graffiti of visitors painted on every wall of the organ. Some were humorous sayings, others were testaments between lovers, and some were memorials for dead friends.
A loud crash on the other side of the double doors of the gym sent me scurrying like a cockroach through the gym's attached locker rooms, out into the opposite hallway, across the broken and lifted linoleum floor tiles, past the bowling alley where squatters had been staying, and through a set of double doors of the auditorium. I froze in the last rays of sunlight pouring through the open doors of the projector booth, which extended right down to the stage, illuminating the stage's final set in an orange light. The facade of a school house, a makeshift well, and a short flagpole, all bright orange under the sun's final breath. Frozen amongst the musty smell of ancient theater seats, the kind that fold when ever you stand, I realized that this moment may never come again. I felt like Indiana Jones, watching some ancient planetary alignment taking place. Shout from the hallway ceased my imagination and sent me barreling full speed at the stage. I climbed the stage just as a flashlight poured into the auditorium, just as the sun faded. I ran, heart pounding, veins throbbing, lungs wheezing, out the backstage loading dock, where i slid into a bush, waiting for the red and blue lights to drive off, waiting for them to drive past the demolition equipment. Waiting for my chance to make a difference.
The smell of death didn't mean that the land had been claimed by the past. One organ, the easternmost one, still puffed smoke out of it's smokestacks, occasionally roaring with the sound of generators. Though the other organs had been shut down, the city had decided to transplant the power plant and keep it a functioning part of the city. The westernmost organ lay beaten and battered, as if it had taken a fatal punch to the cranium. More than half the building had caved in under the weight of countless winters of heavy Michigan snowfall without grounds keepers to sweep heavy snows off roofs. Classrooms had collapsed in on themselves like our economy, though a new beauty was literally growing through the destruction and rubble. Weeds had grown between the fallen support beams, between the shattered blackboards that lay shattered on the ground, and between the floor boards of the gym, who's ceiling was still intact. Here, on the sides of the thirty foot tall cranium, where the thoughtless could exchange thoughts and fun, was the graffiti of visitors painted on every wall of the organ. Some were humorous sayings, others were testaments between lovers, and some were memorials for dead friends.
A loud crash on the other side of the double doors of the gym sent me scurrying like a cockroach through the gym's attached locker rooms, out into the opposite hallway, across the broken and lifted linoleum floor tiles, past the bowling alley where squatters had been staying, and through a set of double doors of the auditorium. I froze in the last rays of sunlight pouring through the open doors of the projector booth, which extended right down to the stage, illuminating the stage's final set in an orange light. The facade of a school house, a makeshift well, and a short flagpole, all bright orange under the sun's final breath. Frozen amongst the musty smell of ancient theater seats, the kind that fold when ever you stand, I realized that this moment may never come again. I felt like Indiana Jones, watching some ancient planetary alignment taking place. Shout from the hallway ceased my imagination and sent me barreling full speed at the stage. I climbed the stage just as a flashlight poured into the auditorium, just as the sun faded. I ran, heart pounding, veins throbbing, lungs wheezing, out the backstage loading dock, where i slid into a bush, waiting for the red and blue lights to drive off, waiting for them to drive past the demolition equipment. Waiting for my chance to make a difference.
Ok, good. Say more about the readings. 8/10
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