In the eighth grade, my language arts teacher taught a unit on poetry where we learned all about haikus, cinquains, limericks and many more. At the end of the unit, we were left with a giant packet full of all the poems we’d created. I guess I could say that was my very first collection of poems. At the time, I’d been playing a lot of soccer which ended up being the main focus of my collection. Every poem involved the sport in one way or another. At the end of the unit before we stapled all the poems together and turned in the packet, we had the opportunity to add a “free poem” which could be any poem ever as long as it was one I created. I chose to add the poem that I’d entered in the contest and won the year before. After a period of time where grading could be completed, we finally received our packets back. I was more than surprised to find that in the comments section on the rubric, my teacher had written, “excellent, you’re a true poet” and “a ‘wow’ poem! Would you be willing to let future classes see this if they did not know who wrote it?” It may not have been much to some people, but those little comments completely made my life and still give my heart a great feeling when looking through old paperwork.
Throughout my eighth grade year, I really lit a spark in my writing career. I entered a community contest with the theme of “fences” based off of a play that was being performed at the local theatre. I wrote a poem about barriers and what they can and cannot do. Unfortunately, that poem is lost to the world because I don’t have a copy of it anywhere. I do have the results list where I won third place in the poetry category and received tickets to the show as part of the prize.
The summer between my seventh grade and eighth grade year of middle school, my hometown experienced the worst flood we could’ve ever imagined. The river that flows right through the heart of downtown crested at thirty-one feet, leaving my city in disarray as every building in the downtown area received extensive damage from the flood waters as well as people’s homes. The flood marked my city so badly that people struggled getting back on their feet. Some businesses couldn’t actually recover from the flood while others bounced back quickly. I felt the need to speak out in some way or another and I turned to writing. I wrote a poem about our historic flood and entered it into the annual art and writing contest for my final year of middle school. I walked away again with a participant certificate and second place prize of thirty-dollars.
Flood of 2008
It had been raining a lot,
Too much to be saved in a pot.
In fact, it rained for days,
And the city was a haze.
For a long time it was overcast,
No one knew how long it would last.
The sun was nowhere in sight,
The mood was glum and no one could fly a kite.
People waited, waited and waited for the crest,
While hoping, praying, and waiting for the very best.
It was on local channels and world news,
So it wasn’t just Cedar Rapids feeling the blues.
George Bush declared a state of emergency
And FEMA helped out with the urgency.
Citizens were asked to conserve water,
So they went with no showers as the summer days grew hotter.
Recovery was going to be long,
But every one helped out and even came up with a song.
“Rise above This” by Seether was a great motivation,
And was played on Z102.9, a popular radio station.
T-shirts were created,
Donations were made.
Our plans were stated,
And we stood out like a report card grade.
Friends and family were forced to depart,
And now they would all have to restart.
Some lost everything,
So much that they couldn’t even find a ring.
So even now today,
Some families are not allowed in their homes to stay.
Instead they’re living in FEMA homes,
Which are so crowded, it makes you feel like living in a dome.
So now you know the story,
Of the flood that changed history.
It will never be forgot,
That day where rain couldn’t be contained in a pot.
I’m writing this post now in 2016, where another historic flood wasn’t predicted to happen for at least another one hundred years, but unfortunately, last month, my hometown experienced yet another historic flood. But this time, we were prepared and had time to protect ourselves. The entire city came together to help sandbag for local businesses and homes in the flood zone. Fortunately, this flood of 2016 was nothing compared to the flood of 2008. Most businesses and homes only retained a little water in their basements, nothing like having only their roof above water like before when the waters rose.
courtney k. snodgrass 