Arlo Salinger’s Poem Generator (ArSaPoG)

By Arlo Salinger

Welcome to Arlo Salinger’s Poem Generator (ArSaPoG). In a few simple steps, you can create your own submission to 2024’s Rushlight: Secret Garden. Please keep limbs inside of the ride at all times.

Under the Hood: The ArSaPog was designed by—who else—me, Arlo Salinger. Using a text analysis tool, I deconstructed the most recent Rushlight (Renaissance) to its simplest parts, reviewed all of the various writing styles, and bashed rocks together until I got something that can, no doubt, get you into Rushlight: Secret Garden.

There are some limitations on this. While the inputs are agnostic to the original style of writing, the output can necessarily only be in the form of a poem. This is because prose, unfortunately, requires much more obvious syntactic structure than poetry does. Additionally, since words that were repeated in higher frequency are favored over words that appeared only a few times, authors that really nailed in one or two phrases get a bit more skin in the game when it comes to the word generation. To hopefully counteract this, I have added a set of “trademark words”: Words and phrases that only appeared once during the magazine. The inclusion of these are vital to the publication of your piece in Rushlight. Oh, also, some words got formatted weird. It’s hard to perfectly input over 100 pages containing over 18k words.

The ArSaPoG was originally designed to be used with a set of simple resources that most people should have access to.
(If you can’t access some materials, you can use RANDOM.org’s number generation feature as needed).

1. Deck of playing cards
2. 6-sided die
3. A coin approximately the size of a standard U.S. quarter with two visibly distinct sides
4. A Wheaton College wID
With these simple materials, you should be able to create something truly amazing!

I. Poetic Intent

The first step is to set the Poetic Intent. Flip a coin.
Heads (even #) - This is a narrative poem whose goal is to tell the audience a story.
Tails (odd #) - This poem’s goal is to illustrate a concept, moment, feeling, or otherwise without explicitly referring to one event.
While this may seem like it has no bearing upon the result of the piece, setting the Poetic Intent early on can help you a lot in the creative process. This will hopefully be evident as you continue to write your poem.

II. Structure
Next, we shall determine the structure of your poem. Roll the die.
1 - This poem is a traditional poem. Begin lines with capital letters, use punctuation, and don’t worry about including some longer lines and phrases.
2 - This poem is actually a series of smaller poetic fragments separated into parts. Roll the die again and use the value rolled to determine how many parts the poem will have. One last time, roll the die to determine the section headers:
1 or 6 - Letters. “a.”, “b.”, “c.”, etc. Use any capitalization you want.
2 or 5 - Roman numerals. “I”, “II”, “III”, etc. Use any capitalization you want.
3 - Arabic numerals. “1.”, “2.”, “3.”, etc.
4 - Short titles. Generate these using the Trademark Words section.
3 - This poem is a more modern poem. Use exclusively lowercase letters and use shorter lines.
4 - This poem is more modern but has gained confidence in writing longer lines. Use exclusively lowercase letters and don’t be afraid to have more words per line.
5 - This poem is extremely modern. Do some E. E. Cummings shit. Separate words, split them over lines, left-align them, go bananas.
6 - This poem is postmodern. There are literally multiple ways to read it. While constructing this poem, make sure that it has a cool double meaning when you read it backwards, include footnotes, or read both halves at the same time or some cool shit.

III. Content
Prepare your Wheaton College wID. Ignore the 00 at the beginning. If you do not have one and are reading this, generate a random number from 000001–999999 and add 00 to the beginning of it. Now, again, ignore the 00 at the beginning.
The numbers, when added together, will tell you how many times to generate content words. If, for example, I used RANDOM.org to generate a wID and got w00568057, I would generate “Content” thirty-one times.
If the number is less than or equal to 12, use the Content Phrases list.
If the number is between 13 and 54, use one of the following Content Words list. Every time you generate a Content Word, flip a coin.
Heads (even #) - Word Bank 1
Tails (odd #) - Word Bank 2
Please note: Some “Content Words” are actually short phrases. If you have a problem with this, send an email to the Rushlight editing staff.
Lastly, if your Poetic Intent was narrative, add an additional Phrase from the Phrase List no matter how many words you have drawn.
Now, draw a card using the appropriate list. Leave the card out of the deck for the next time you draw.
Word Bank 1
1♠(1) - silence is never 7♠(7) - walking
2♠(2) - don’t know 8♠(8) - before
3♠(3) - time 9♠(9) - younger
4♠(4) - and 10♠(10) - if you
5♠(5) - wasn’t J♠(11) - fox
6♠(6) - vodka bottle Q♠(12) - again
K♠(13) - my mother

1♥(14) - window 7♥(20) - gun
2♥(15) - boy 8♥(21) - day
3♥(16) - beat 9♥(22) - arm
4♥(17) - see 10♥(23) - afternoon
5♥(18) - fuck J♥(24) - knowing
6♥(19) - the way you Q♥(25) - other
K♥(26) - because

1♣(27) - memories 7♣(33) - look
2♣(28) - i wanted to 8♣(34) - something
3♣(29) - room 9♣(35) - world
4♣(30) - love 10♣(36) - death
5♣(31) - version J♣(37) - same face
6♣(32) - heavy Q♣(38) - said
K♣(39) - go

1♦(40) - her eyes 7♦(46) - let
2♦(41) - night 8♦(47) - god
3♦(42) - long 9♦(48) - sky
4♦(43) - through 10♦(49) - to make you
5♦(44) - hand J♦(50) - boat
6♦(45) - wasn’t Q♦(51) - red
K♦(52) - corner

Word Bank II
1♠(1) - i should have 7♠(7) - kiss
2♠(2) - trying 8♠(8) - tears
3♠(3) - green 9♠(9) - group
4♠(4) - leave 10♠(10) - flowers
5♠(5) - rain J♠(11) - more than just
6♠(6) - seems Q♠(12) - lips
K♠(13) - never

1♥(14) - city 7♥(20) - Naruto
2♥(15) - yet 8♥(21) - open field
3♥(16) - chest 9♥(22) - fear
4♥(17) - in high school 10♥(23) - friends
5♥(18) - innocence J♥(24) - black
6♥(19) - forward Q♥(25) - and
K♥(26) - moat

1♣(27) - down 7♣(33) - life
2♣(28) - staring 8♣(34) - looked
3♣(29) - sweet 9♣(35) - how
4♣(30) - do you 10♣(36) - slowly
5♣(31) - voice J♣(37) - everyone
6♣(32) - two Q♣(38) - not the same
K♣(39) - though

1♦(40) - the door 7♦(46) - i saw
2♦(41) - dead 8♦(47) - old
3♦(42) - couldn’t 9♦(48) - woman
4♦(43) - fall 10♦(49) - against
5♦(44) - days J♦(50) - point
6♦(45) - sun Q♦(51) - i know
K♦(52) - told

Phrase List

1♠(1) - i don’t know if i want 7♠(7) - the sky is falling
2♠(2) - my deprecating eyes 8♠(8) - floating people in white noise
3♠(3) - is not the same as 9♠(9) - tender kiss to fix
4♠ (4) - i can glue it 10♠(10) - my body cries
5♠(5) - silence is never quiet J♠(11) - next to each other
6♠(6) - it wants you to Q♠(12) - couldn’t care less
K♠(13) - made longer by sleep

1♥(14) - of my empty guts 7♥(20) - open field night
2♥(15) - before time could be dated 8♥(21) - the charming frame
3♥(16) - there was no way 9♥(22) - for every street corner
4♥(17) - what’s the point 10♥(23) - the same face that
5♥(18) - to each other J♥(24) - and i think
6♥(19) - i’ve got to Q♥(25) - is never enough
K♥(26) - conviction of someone who

1♣(27) - granting me an escape 7♣(33) - her days made
2♣(28) - sex which stabs 8♣(34) - an upturned bowl poured
3♣(29) - a few feet 9♣(35) - is not the same
4♣(30) - round face of the young 10♣(36) - seemed to notice
5♣(31) - the world goes dark J♣(37) - its natural pheromones
6♣(32) - read the symptoms Q♣(38) - dust settled on
K♣(39) - one of the lucky

1♦(40) - down heart leaving 7♦(46) - numbers are so
2♦(41) - lead the collision 8♦(47) - bounced gleefully through
3♦(42) - can call it yours 9♦(48) - all of my roommates
4♦(43) - plunk plunk plunk 10♦(49) - graft of my tongue
5♦(44) - better than consciousness J♦(50) - no room for
6♦(45) - my yellow tone fourth Q♦(51) - the night with it all
K♦(52) - face in my knee

IV. Additional Words
Now that you have some words, it’s time for you to add some of those Trademark Words that will really add the oomph to your poem.
For every even number in your wID including 0—yes, even the ones at the beginning—add one Trademark Word.
Draw a card. Leave the card out of the deck for the next time you draw.

Trademark Words
1♠(1) - exquisite 7♠(7) - fish
2♠(2) - sour 8♠(8) - counselor
3♠(3) - honeybee 9♠(9) - gatcha
4♠(4) - conversation 10♠(10) - American
5♠(5) - neighborhood J♠(11) - rectangle
6♠(6) - elder Q♠(12) - unintelligibly
K♠(13) - female

1♥(14) - budding 7♥(20) - theatrics
2♥(15) - concussion 8♥(21) - exhaust
3♥(16) - blizzard 9♥(22) - glides
4♥(17) - sadistic 10♥(23) - vessels
5♥(18) - puppet J♥(24) - hellstorm
6♥(19) - canvas Q♥(25) - drip
K♥(26) - destruction

1♣(27) - gutted 7♣(33) - fade
2♣(28) - magic 8♣(34) - ravage
3♣(29) - named 9♣(35) - caress
4♣(30) - penetration 10♣(36) - macabre
5♣(31) - aloof J♣(37) - jazz
6♣(32) - wax Q♣(38) - chandelier
K♣(39) - mud

1♦(40) - knives 7♦(46) - turquoise
2♦(41) - laundromat 8♦(47) - seek
3♦(42) - Portuguese 9♦(48) - liquor
4♦(43) - chamomile 10♦(49) - strength
5♦(44) - disposition J♦(50) - sexy
6♦(45) - mood Q♦(51) - pornographic
K♦(52) - ripple

V. Title
Every good poem needs a title. It’s really hard to come up with a good poem title, though. So, let’s have a nice little table for that too. BUT WAIT. Flip two coins. If you get the same result twice, your poem is titled “Untitled”.
If not, roll a die. You need to draw that many cards from a deck. This time, they will be divided into Red (r) or Black (b). We’re in the home stretch now!

1b (1) - ancient 7b (7) - in
2b (2) - on 8b (8) - city
3b (3) - wrong 9b (9) - torso
4b (4) - closet 10b (10) - what
5b (5) - a capella Jb (11) - nobody
6b (6) - of Qb (12) - friend
Kb (13) - 2022

1r (14) - to 7r (20) - &
2r (15) - take 8r (21) - for
3r (16) - story 9r (22) - not
4r (17) - it 10r (23) - time
5r (18) - difference Jr (24) - through
6r (19) - part Qr (25) - look
Kr (26) - arrangement

VI. Conclusion
By now, you should have the building blocks for something good. Arrange these pieces as you see fit. This includes the punctuation as well, so long as it follows the poem’s Structure. As-is, there is an unfathomably long list of poems that can be made here. How many can there even be? Like, genuine question now. Just doing out the numbers based on the playing card draws, this far exceeds 4,893,842,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s. Too much, almost.
To exemplify how this is done, I will make my own poem using the ArSaPoG. I hope that you enjoyed all of this. I hope that you make good poetry.

The Tunnel

By Tesfay Saleh-Batts

When I was a kid I used to hold my breath under tunnels. It’s so interesting how my mind
works because even now I try to find analogies in everything. The same way I see eyes as
portals and smiles as mirrors, I see you as a tunnel. I hold my breath every time I see you.
Maybe it’s because my parents told me it would give me good luck, and that’s all I need when it
comes to you. Or maybe it’s because it gives me the reality of time and that’s all I need when
it comes to you. Or maybe you’re a tunnel because you always remind me to see the light, and
that’s all I need when it comes to you. I guess that’s why I can’t talk to you because I always
need to hold my breath. Because you always keep me up from drowning in myself even when I
don’t know the depth.

-The Tunnel

Case Study 348

By Olivia Modica

Day 18,

I usually don’t sleep at night, and when I do I drift off into the nothingness and do not dream. I always chalked it up to the fact that I wasn’t creative. I had never enjoyed the arts and found myself a more scientific man. I like the facts, what is true and easy to believe in.
Three weeks ago I was told about a new insomnia sleep study at the research center two towns over. I thought, ‘what the hell? I rarely sleep as is, might as well make a couple bucks off of it.’ We were marched in here three weeks ago and told by some scientist that it would last a month. I had nothing better to do, so I took the chance. They asked us to keep a journal during our stay here, record any changes in sleeping patterns or odd behavior. Along with the journal they introduced me to the drug that would be the center of this entire study. It is said to not only aid with sleep but intensify dreams.
For the first two weeks everything was normal. It wasn’t until three nights ago that the dreams started. The first time it happened I opened my eyes prepared to see the room I had been provided during my stay but I was instead met with a dark sea of clouds. There were people all around me staring at me. Their faces were distorted and stretched as if someone was pulling their flesh in two different directions. Their mouths were gaping open, and although they were open no sound came out.
One of them was crying, but she still remained silent and unmoving. It was unnerving to me that tears were just puddling on the dirt around her shoes but she said nothing. Then I woke up. Days after I’ve had this dream I can still remember every single detail.

Day 21,

I was asleep for fifteen hours yesterday. I’ve never slept longer than five and somehow my body took it upon itself to put me out for fifteen hours! If one of the researchers hadn’t come to check on me I don’t think I ever would’ve woken up. Somehow I dreamed the entire time. Every detail is etched, no carved, into my brain. I remember the faces. Every single one. I remember the sound of my screams mixed with their screams mixed with more screams.
Some of the faces were familiar too. Perhaps my brain doesn’t have the bandwidth to create new faces and is using my fellow participants as inspiration, after all they are practically the only people I interact with. However, when I wake and I attempt to search for these people from my dreams I come up empty handed. It appears as if maybe these faces are coming from a different place. They want to evaluate my psyche and make sure I won’t become a danger to the other patients. But I’ve seen things, I know I’ve seen things. Just yesterday I saw them dragging someone away (information has been redacted for your safety and the safety of others).

Day 25,
Since my last entry I have been evaluated and they’ve put me under what is essentially house arrest. I have been stuck in this fucking room for days with nothing but the infuriatingly bright lights that sit on hour after hour blinding me. I promise I’m not crazy. I’m as perfectly sane as any person can be.

Day 27,
I haven’t slept since that day. I have been sitting, staring at the wall blindingly awake. I think I’ve stopped blinking, hell I think I’ve stopped breathing! I’ve begun to occupy myself with watching. I take in every move of every person I see. I’ve started to notice that some of them haven’t been leaving their rooms. I asked the researchers and they said that those people were part of a shorter project. I don’t believe them. I’ve seen things, I’ve seen everything. No one has left, no one is leaving. They’re all still here! (information has been redacted for your safety and the safety of others).They’re somewhere I know they are. Sometimes I hear them scream, but no one is there. There has to be someone, they have to be somewhere! I know they are, they have to be, they have to be, they have to be.

Day 31,
This morning the nurse came in and gave me the sleeping pills. They’ve said that I’ve been awake for an unhealthy amount of time. They said they just want to help me. I didn’t want to take it, I don’t want to sleep. They had to tie me down to keep me from screaming (information has been redacted for your safety and the safety of others). I tried to vomit up the sleeping pills to no avail. I’m trying to fight it, the sleep I mean. The researchers must truly want me to sleep because the screamings have stopped and no one has come to see me all day. Perhaps, if they are so insistent, I should stop fighting it. To be honest, I’m beginning to have trouble fighting sleep. Even as I write my eyes are being forced open and I can barely think................

Important Notes;
After two weeks of exposure to the drug, patient 35890 has finally become susceptible to the influence of the proposed drug dgkdjfgdfgdg (information has been redacted for your safety and the safety of others). The patient shows signs of the vivid dreams we’ve seen in action and should wake up in six to eight weeks, if at all. According to the current statistics, about 5.0% (information has been redacted for your safety and the safety of others) of patients wake up from comatose. If the patient does not wake up the protocol is provided on the next page. In addition to this, you can find documentation to provide forged death certificates on page 92 of your packets.

Utopia

By Alexis Kublin

My hand finds the button before the alarm clock even has a chance to sing out. I used to get eight hours every night, but now I keep waking up a few minutes early. No matter, I suppose. The cool shower water wakes me up, as does my morning cup of coffee. The machine hums a little louder today as the coffee drips out.
‍ ‍What about this place? you had asked me when you saw the ad in the paper after three days of the two of us saying we had to get out of there. You showed me the photo and I knew it was perfect; I would have cried right then and there but we both knew there was no time.
I put my mug in the sink and, for the first time, I notice a fleck of paint has chipped off the wall. I reach out to trace the edges of the gash, and when I pull my hand away, paint crumbles, ever so small, sleep on my fingertips. And when I walk down the hallway, a corner of the carpet, right over there by the bedroom door, has lifted up, as if waving. Or maybe smirking.
‍ ‍I’m in love with the air here, you said as we carried in the last of our boxes. We had left so much behind that we were settled in on the same day we got the key. The sweet air filled my lungs with notes of ripening berries and soil after it rains. We called each other by our new names and laughed because of how ridiculous they sounded, but our laughter stopped when we remembered how necessary they were.
‍ ‍We’ll be safe here, you had said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in. A fresh start. Leave everything behind us. Nothing to worry about now. And I felt the corners of my mouth tug up and I beamed so fully for the first time in a week just looking around at our house that glowed neon with hope.
But this morning, I’ve forgotten to get the newspaper from outside like I do every day before drinking my coffee. I leave the bedroom for the front stoop but stop short right before it—the front door is gone, torn right off the hinges, leaving a gaping hole I fear would suck me in if I take just one more step. The front yard is now another room but it’s much, much larger, with a bed and a dresser and a TV so enormous that they feel like monsters and for a moment I stop breathing. I feel myself falling backwards and I wait for you to catch me but I remember you left early this morning and I hit the ground and the fall knocks air back into my lungs. I quickly turn around to see the living room, except the house is different. The candies in the bowl on the coffee table are now chewy plastic. The air is suddenly hot, too hot, and I try to open a window but I can’t, it’s just a painting on the wall. And the wall is made of cardboard. Flimsy, shaking cardboard. Nothing but cardboard.
I’m in a dollhouse—all plastic and cardboard. It’s nothing stable. It’s nothing that can support us.
Then I remember you’re not here.
It’s nothing that can support me.
‍ ‍Nobody needs to know had become your motto when we suddenly realized how far away we had to
move.
I see the water stains on the ceiling before brown water begins to pour down, and I think maybe a pipe has burst or maybe it’s me who’s erupting now. I run through the hole where the doorway used to be and bend down for the newspaper because it feels like the only stable thing. My hair is soaked with pipe water and it spits onto the front page of the newspaper, blurring the photo, the one that takes up half the front page, the one that, even through the water, I can tell is of me. I scan the words but you’re nowhere to be found. And then I remember you never told me where you were going so early today. Or how I could find you. Or why you double-checked the box under the loose floorboard last night.
Looking at the inky me bleeding out over the page, I can imagine well enough the color of my own face draining out. The ceiling cracks under the panic of this storm, and I’m not sure how or when but my knees find the floor and then all of me finds the floor as the dirty pipe water runs over me and floods my face, or maybe those are tears, or maybe it’s my ink pouring out.
I know it’s only a matter of time before they find me here and you manage to escape again while my cardboard house caves in.

Defining the Dead

By Lou Foust

“How many of you grew up with your grandparents?” My psychology professor asked.
I watched several students’ hands fly into the air before raising my own. I hadn’t considered my grandfather’s life with us in years, in fact, I almost forgot about that time altogether. My sisters and I wereyoung, so we didn’t have much understanding of our parents, or our grandfather’s suffering, but we knew both our parents loved my grandfather - they still talk about the wisdom he shared and his quirky habits. I know he loved walking us to the end of the driveway for the school bus every day, and that he loved having his grandchildren around him. I’ve seen his pictures, and I remember being with him, but I don’t remember any of the conversations we might’ve had.
One evening, years before, sitting with my feet up in a la-Z-boy, my father approached me and dropped a stack of papers in my lap. I could tell he’d been rummaging around in the attic because he smelled like mothballs and moldy wood. I had asked him for my grandfather’s essays, and he told me that stack of papers was all he could find, and walked into the kitchen to help my mother with dinner. The name at the top left of the page, in shaky black ink was my grandfather’s: E. Earnest Foust.
It was my senior year of high school. I was starting to put in applications with the guidance office for scholarships, and it quickly became apparent that one of the few scholarships I could apply to was for $500 from the Americal Legion Auxiliary Unit. The essay prompt was simple: What makes the veteran(s) in your family a hero? The prompt itself made me cringe. I knew my Pop Pop had no words for the feeling of hatred he felt for his time at war. He was a veteran who stood against war to his dying breath, and who paid his own money for speakers to visit his university’s campus to lecture on that very topic. He was a veteran who converted to Quakerism after his time was served, a fact that, intentional or otherwise, would later save his children from the draft. As I read his essays, and typed away on my computer to write my own, my stomach twisted itself in knots. I didn’t feel right about it.
I was reminded of a conversation I’d had years earlier. I can’t remember exactly, but I imagine it was a cold fall day, and my mother was zipping my jacket so I could go outside and jump in the leaves.
“Why don’t we have school today?” I asked.
“It’s Veterans Day,” she answered.
“What’s that?” I asked, the smell of Nana’s molasses cookies wafting into my nose.
“A veteran is someone who served in a war, or spent time in the military.”
“But we don’t have any of those in our family, do we?”
“Unfortunately, we do,” she says as Pop Pop zips his jacket to follow me outside. He hadn’t heard my mother, but she turned and rested her eyes on his wrinkled, smiling face. I understood she was talking about him.
“Just be grateful you have the day off,” she told me. “And remember, like Pop Pop says, ‘Any day you’re not being shot at is a good day.’ ”
I’ve heard that sentence over and over through the years. If I had a bad day at school, if I com-plained about my homework or having to practice playing guitar, it was “Pop Pop used to say ‘Any day you’re not being shot at is a good day’ ” until the words meant nothing.
Pop Pop volunteered for service in 1943.1 He was 18 years old. People all over the country were being drafted, and, because of the military’s high expectations for physical and mental wellbeing, about half of them were promptly rejected for service. Pop Pop passed all of these tests and evaluations, and, before long, he was in the army, and shipped off to Europe.
As I read a talk he gave at Kutztown University on the Rhetoric of Peace, I picture him as he described, a skinny 20-year-old, two years into his service in March of 1945, less than a year after recovering from a shell explosion that left shrapnel in his body, now ready to cross the Rhine River in a small boat with some others. Despite not being trained in this kind of operation, he recalls that someone thought it was important to get more troops across the river to finish the destruction of a collapsing German army. The morning darkness prevented him from even seeing how many men were aboard the vessel with him. Then, only minutes after leaving port, he felt cold water at his feet and panicked shouts from the bow as the ship sank into the dark water. Although he doesn’t say it, I suspect the boat had been shot at. He recalls that with a calm he could not explain, he jumped out of the boat and attempted to get as far away from it as possible. Amid the chaos, the yelling for help, and the splashing of water, he pushed away a drowning man to keep his head above water. He stayed there until after the last shouting man from his boat disappeared beneath the water.
Nearly half the boats from that effort sank, and Pop Pop barely survived using two steel helmets to trap air inside, lock his fingers over the top, and hold them to his chest to stay afloat until he was rescued.
In my essay I wrote about the historical significance of World War II in ending the Great Depression (another global event that greatly affected my grandfather’s early life), the heroic story of fighting the Nazis at 18 years old, his honorable discharge, his Purple Heart, and the stepping stone that his service became. Due to the GI Bill, he was able to be the first in his family to pursue college, get his BA at Lock Haven State College, get his master’s at the University of Iowa, nearly finish his doctorate, write his dissertation on the rhetoric of war, and become a professor of English at Kutztown University. I didn’t mention his lineage, that his family had immigrated from Germany, that his future wife’s family also came from Germany, or that, no matter how terrible their beliefs might have been, he could have been fighting, and killing, his cousins, his uncles, or future in-laws. I don’t write about how he was upset the rest of his life about the army recruiter showing up in the flyer at his church, or how he was ultimately disappointed in himself for giving in to the idea that an 18-year-old like himself ought to fight for his country, or how he spent the rest of his life fighting to make sure his generation was the last to see military service as the natural next step in their lives. I don’t write about how every battle makes him believe that there’s no divine plan for human beings, or how witnessing all those deaths turned him toward a life of peace and avid anti-war sentiment. In other words, I didn’t write about the hero my grandfather was, but the hero they wanted to hear about. My omissions made me sick, but everything I read showed me how much we had in common: an interest in farming, fighting bias and ending war. It made me realize how much I could have learned from him about farming, activism, or writing.
My hands trembled as I hit print on the essay, and again as I handed it to the guidance department the next morning. But despite my essay and the stories that I read, the time he served didn’t define him to me. It’s not how I think of him at all.
My Grandfather was reported missing in action twice during the two years he served, and twice he was the sole survivor of his platoon. He witnessed the perversion of taking human lives, sending them out, and not expecting them to return. At the end of it, he finally returned home to Montoursville, Pennsylvania. And there, in his home, having miraculously survived the war, having seen so many deaths, and having lived when so many died, his mother happily greeted him at the door with a handshake. There was no dramatic hug or leap into her arms. He was greeted with a handshake.
This is the version of Pop Pop that my father was raised by. A calm, stoic figure worthy of great respect, but who would not show physical affection.
“I thought highly of him,” he told me as he thought back on his younger years, “but I guess you could say he was a little aloof. ‘Go do your thing let me know if you have any issues.’ In some ways, I wanted some more direction.”
After the war, my grandfather went off to college, where he met his wife, Barbara. By the time my father, the youngest of their four children, was born in 1959, they had a peaceful rural farm and a tall stone house in Kutztown, Pennsylvania with lush green fields that seemed to stretch on for miles. There, my grandfather had 25 sheep to tend, four or five goats, several angora rabbits, fences to repair, a garden to grow, and a professorship at Kutztown University.
During the school year, Pop Pop would pay for speakers for the students on the literature of peace and war. He was educating the new generation of youth in America, and he wanted them to hear his truth. He saw to it that his generation would be the last to view going into the military as “the thing to do”. He studied and taught classes on the rhetoric of peace, read about what military leaders and military men said, and taught classes on it.
Everyone had their place on the farm, and even my father. Every year the neighbors would hay the fields for them, so my Dad and Pop Pop would spend hours moving the hay into the barn together. In the back corner of the barn, my Nana devoted a section to a workshop with buckets, dyes, and mechanisms for dying the fleece which could be sold, or spun into yarn.
Pop Pop had come a long way from his previous life. After growing up in the Great Depression with a father who had found work shoveling coal into a fire, he’d managed to not only graduate high school, but college as well, and lived a life with infinitely more options. “He changed the trajectory of all of our lives.” My Dad said.
Pop Pop’s brother Bob, who had been in the military but never seen action, was a janitor at a local school, and my dad’s cousin Allan got his plumbers’ license and did plumbing maintenance guy at the same school at which his father worked. His family had lives and careers, but they didn’t value college education the way Pop Pop did. But despite changing his lifestyle, and the fact that his family didn’t value a school education, he managed to maintain the connection he’d had with them all.
Pop Pop was the “golden boy” of his family, in many ways, but everyone worked hard, and in their free time they would play. They’d fish, and hunt, enjoying and retreating into the solitude of nature.
After Pop Pop retired, he moved to Maine and established a routine near his new home. He spent much of his time at the Health Club in Farmingdale, about 15 minutes from our house, and a warm and welcoming local Chinese Restaurant called Lucky Garden that overlooked the Kennebec River.
When he bought it, the house was run-down and was thought in town to be spooky and haunted because of how long it had gone without being lived in. At this house, in the middle of nowhere Maine, he set out to fix it up. The house was blue-gray when he bought it, and it was built as a small inn. It wasn’t fitted with electricity, proper insulation, or heating, and it took years of construction projects, planting trees, and gardens for the house to feel like a home. Then, he built an addition to the house for my Mom and Dad.
In retirement, Pop Pop softened. He had time to look back on his life and reflect.
My Dad recalls that one day, as they were working on the house, my Dad gave Pop Pop, who he says was never a very good handyman, the task of fitting a piece of wood for the trim of the house. My Dad knew not to expect much from him but, to his surprise, Pop Pop came back with exactly what he needed.
“Perfect, wow! Great job!” my dad said with surprise, grabbing his father’s shoulder.
That tiny moment started a revolution in his brain as if experiencing affection from his son permitted him to do the same. He became more passionate, attentive, and affectionate, and a joy for everyone to have around.
“He was a great person to have around at parties,” my Mom remembers, “because he could start a meaningful conversation with anyone.”
I recall eating at Lucky Garden as a family, the smell of delicious soy sauce and deep-fried foods in our noses. Our waiter would smile ear to ear, and call him by name. “Table for seven?” they’d ask.
In those moments, seeing the joy that he brought to every person around him, I remember so distinctly feeling bubbly and happy to have him as my grandfather, because with him we had a community around us.
It was a brisk afternoon in October when my Pop Pop, put on a sweater and left through the heavy, burgundy, front door of the house we shared. My Mom and Dad were away at work, my older sister and I at school, and my younger sister at daycare. My Nana died only a couple of weeks before, so there was nothing to stop him from going outside into the afternoon air and going for a walk. Pop Pop loved to walk. He had been physically fit since his time in the military because he hoped to live a long life. The smell of the moist leaves on the ground filled the air, and the gravel of our driveway crunched under his shoes as he headed for the road. Earlier that morning he had happily walked my sister and me down to the bus stop, and now he was making the walk again. When he reached the end of the driveway, though, he turned left and walked up the big hill on Route 27, cars whipping past him clocking 60, maybe 65 or 70 miles per hour as they always did. At the top of the hill is a local store - the only one in our town. It’s a small red building that was converted from a gas station into a general store. It’s not much to look at, but he would have known it well. Pop Pop used to take us there sometimes because they had delicious turnovers and other pastries. Pop Pop made scrambled eggs for us every day, as he believed they were the key to a balanced breakfast, but he also welcomed a sweet treat from the store every once in a while. He used to hold my little hand in his and wait for me to point out what I wanted before he’d reach in for the sweet-smelling treat and pay at the register. Usually, we’d go back down the hill and wait until we got home to stick it in the toaster oven and eat it. Today, though,
Pop Pop reached the store and kept walking. He was headed to his childhood home in Montoursville, Pennsylvania.
This was a sign of mid to late-stage dementia. Because Nana’s difficulties had been so glaring, Pop Pop’s struggle and decline had been overshadowed by hers. But now she was gone, and so, too was the façade that he was getting by.
“When you forget a noun it’s no problem,” my mom says at the dinner table one night, “but when you forget what to do with a noun, you know that’s a problem.” She’s referring to one morning when, in the dining room around our dark, wooden, dinner table, she found Pop Pop eating his classic scrambled eggs with a comb instead of a fork. “If I ever get like that, feel free just to push me down the stairs.” my Dad says, motioning the push with his hands, and the dinner table quiets. He’s sitting with his arms crossed, and a smile on his face, but I see not only his sadness but his fear that one day we, his children, will experience the same reversal of roles. I feel that he fears one day he will no longer be our caretaker, but that we will be his caretaker in the same way he stepped into the same role for his father.
‍ ‍It’s a joke, I tell myself, but sit quietly wondering if I would even be capable of such a thing.
It took about half an hour for a kind stranger, your stereotypical lumberjack type with a scruffy beard and a flannel shirt, to pull over, pick Pop Pop up in his truck, and bring him home. He didn’t know he was in Maine, 700 miles away from his would-be destination. He didn’t know where he lived, but he was able to point out the house as they passed by it. The man told my parents “You know, he really can’t be left alone” and, although they were already aware of the
growing issue, that was the end of it. After 30 years in our house in Maine, Pop Pop didn’t recognize it anymore, and it was time for him to go back to Pennsylvania.
We started making trips several times a year to visit him, and I loved them, for the most part. When we would make the eight-and-a-half drive to Pennsylvania we would stay with my Aunt and Uncle who lived near Pop Pop’s new home. I loved my Uncle Bill and my Aunt Linda. They were the most energetic, fun adults I knew, and never too busy to do something fun. They had chickens we could feed, collect the eggs from, and play with. They also had a hot tub, a paved driveway with lots of chalk, a pet turtle on which Aunt Linda had painted, a neighborhood in which they had friends, a beautiful stone house, cousins our age within walking distance, and a Wii. Their house was everything we didn’t have, and so much more. The only thing keeping us apart was a whole day of driving.
The thing about those trips was that I dreaded going to see Pop-Pop. He was unrecognizable to me. He never knew who I was, who my Dad was, or anyone who was with us. I was frustrated and, even though I knew he wasn’t faking, I kept thinking How could he not recognize us? He used to live with us! And his kids? He should know them!
My Mom remembers during a visit, Pop Pop turned to her, smiled, and said, “What a nice group of people.”
Unsure how to respond, she said, “Well, they’re all here for you.”
Pop Pop, although visibly confused, teared up and he asked, “Why? What have I done to bring these people together?”
Of course, my parents wanted to see him as much as they could, but I hated being there, I thought it was boring as hell, and he stank of sleep and bad breath. His body was a fleshy bag of sticks. We went for my parents, I knew it wasn’t about us, and I had to be on my best behavior. Sit still I’d be thinking as I sat there, in an uncomfortable, foldable chair.
Uncle Bill taught me to interlink my fingers and crank my thumbs around each other to pass the time, but it wasn’t as amusing as not being there.
Sometimes I brought my guitar, but I didn’t like to play for him. I doubted he knew any of the songs I could play, and I didn’t feel like I was playing for him anyway. I felt like I was playing just because my parents wanted me to have something to do, or maybe just to fill the silence.
Almost 70 years after being discharged, and just four years after moving back to Pennsylvania, on June 4, 2014, my Pop Pop’s time came to an end. At 89 years old he lay sick on a bed in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. All of his children, my Dad, Matthew, my uncles Jonathan, Bill, and my aunt Ginny surrounded him as he sat still, conscious but unable to recognize those around him. His frail old body, a body that had survived war, loss, and untold suffering, was now unable to fend for itself and lay on the bed that had been his home for three long years. The room was all-white like a hospital, and smelled like sleep, sweat, and cleaning supplies.
They had all been going through old photos and reminiscing about their childhoods, but Pop Pop hadn’t made any indication that he recognized any of his children, so my father choked and decided he needed a walk. As he announced this to his siblings, Pop Pop had a moment of clarity. He reached up, grabbed his youngest child’s hand, and said simply “Don’t go, Matt.”
As far as anyone knew he could have had days or weeks left, but his brain cells had deteriorated, and he could no longer swallow. His body was cramping from dehydration, so the nurses gave him morphine. He spoke to his family a good while after receiving the morphine,
though no one knew what it was he was trying to say. Then, finally, enough of his brain cells died that he no longer could control his body. His organs failed, he lost control of his muscles, and his brain died. That night, he passed away.
Rather than his history in the army during World War II, rather than the stories that my parents have told about him since that time, rather than remembering him as a husband, a former English professor, an intellectual, humorous, old, ill, or confused, that story defines my grandfather to me. As, above all else, a man who knew that his children were suffering, and cared, in his final moments, to have them with him, to talk to them, and bring them a feeling of peace. Who knew that his children were suffering, and cared, in his final moments, to have them with him, to talk to them, and bring them a feeling of peace.
When Pop Pop died I was about a month shy of 12 years old. I understood it was a solemn time, and that energy lingered in the house for a long time afterward, but while I understood they felt sad, I couldn’t imagine or consider how my parents were feeling. Their emotions were too big for me to understand, too colossal for me to translate. I knew I couldn’t understand, so I kept quiet, and I kept my distance, as I saw them as needing it.
Although my father had also watched his mother’s decline, the two deaths were not the same. Nana had not been herself for decades. My mother, who married my father in 1985, hardly remembers a moment of her during which she seemed to have her head screwed on right, despite my father claiming that she had been level-headed and reasonable in his childhood. When she lived with us, she rambled almost constantly about the tiny people living in the walls of our basement, and the angels who were keeping her healthy. When she was in the home, she would accuse the nurses of stealing or moving her things. My Dad remembers that she had been unhappy for a very long time, and in the home, she teetered on the edge of death for months before she passed. For her, it was what she wanted. In the end, it was hard for her to find joy in anything. She had made up her mind that life’s meaning went beyond living on earth, and was done with being alive. Every time she’d stop drinking water my dad would think “Maybe she’ll actually do it this time”, and then, soon after, she started drinking again, and still was miserable.
“With Pop Pop”, he said, solemnly, “He kept his essence to the end, his brain just gave up on him.” Pop Pop didn’t want to stay or go, live, or die, he just wanted to live his life. He was a caring, gregarious person. Peace, activism, and family were always important to him.
“That was the best that I think of him, his activism for peace.” My Dad said when I asked how he wanted my sisters and me to remember Pop Pop.
One or both of my parents refer to Pop-Pop nearly every day, even if it is just repeating “Any day you’re not being shot at is a good day.” His presence is missed in their lives. No one can replace him, or bring him back, so they remember, and preserve what they have of him so that my sisters and I never have to wonder who our grandfather was.

How to Spend an Evening Alone (Together)

By Caroline Schwartzbeck

Step 1: Open the door. Drop your bag and kick off your high heels. It doesn’t matter where they land. Turn on the overhead light, if only to prevent you from tripping over the clutter as you walk to the stairs.

(When you open the door, you’re greeted with warm light and a hug. You both embrace it for two, three, four seconds until he pulls away. Following suit, you put your bag on the couch so there’s room for you to take his hand.)

Step 2: Go to your room. Shrug off your work clothes and replace them with last night’s PJs, still stinking of sweat and sadness. Look at the unkempt bed and try to convince yourself to make it up. Fail in the end, of course.

(You shed your professional shell like a butterfly sheds its cocoon. His eyes glimmer as you spread your wings. You don’t think you look like all that in loose pants and an old band T-shirt, but he reassures you that he’d find you the most beautiful girl in the world even if you were dressed in rags.)

Step 3: Shuffle through your pantry until you find the instant mac and cheese—your third batch this week, if you’re counting right. Pour the water, set the timer, and stick it in the microwave for three minutes. Three whole minutes. Let the hum of the appliance become a monotonous backdrop for your sudden realization that you are now alone with your thoughts with no distractions for two minutes and fifty-nine, no, fifty-eight seconds. Try not to think about him. Think about anything but him. Fail at that, too.

(You chop, he stirs, the two of you fall into perfect tandem as you always do. Light pours in from the overhead light as well as the big window over the sink, and the music on his speaker joins the sizzling of the pan to create a cacophony of noise. He joins the chorus, too, shouting “Watch this!” as he tries to flip something in the pan like the chefs do in the movies. It lands on the floor with a sad flop, but you’re both laughing too hard to mourn it.)

Step 4: Pull up a table in front of the TV. Turn it on. Crank the volume all the way up. Pick the sports channel, then remember that the Bulls were his favorite team and switch to some action movie which goes straight to ads, so switch to 24-hour news and keep it there. It won’t make you feel better, but maybe, if you’re lucky, it’ll make you feel something else.

(He insists on using your grandmother’s china even though it’s nothing but a Tuesday afternoon. When you take your first bite, you realize you forgot how good his cooking is. He tells you to give yourself some more credit, that you did half the work and a good half at that. You’re not sure how to respond to that.)

Step 5: Don’t shower, because then there will be nothing but you and your dreaded thoughts and water dripping down your shoulders. Don’t even bother getting up to throw out the empty mac and cheese cup. The TV is your anchor, its constant flow of information shielding you from what’s out there. Don’t take something like that for granted.

(It feels like your shower is the only time you spend apart from him all night. Attached at the hip, his aunt said when she came to visit last year. The quiet is nice in some ways—it gives you time to think about what groceries you’ll need to pick up soon, when you’ll have time to do your laundry next. But that doesn’t deny the joy you feel when you shuffle out into the hall to see him lounging in bed, or how quickly you rush to fill the spot next to him.)

Step 6: Take it for granted. This quarter’s school board elections aren’t that interesting anyway. Go back to your room even though yes, it’s only nine o’clock and yes, you’re not even that tired yet. His ghost may haunt every square foot of this house, but with luck he won’t infiltrate your dreams tonight. Yes—get under the covers, turn out the lights, and wait for sweet unconsciousness to wash over you. When it doesn’t come as quick as you’d hoped, keep your eyes wide open so he’s not there when you close them. Fail at that, and catch just a glimpse of him. Realize too late that that’s enough to bring tears to your eyes, so many tears, and let them out. Maybe only through their release will you be free.

(You stay up talking until you’re both yawning every two seconds. Finally, when you start dozing off in the middle of a sentence, he lifts you off your feet and carries you upstairs. Nestle under the covers together, his arms around your chest, holding you close. You can feel his warmth, beckoning you to sleep like a crackling fire. He falls asleep first, his soft breath touching your hair, and you could swear he utters your name even in sleep. Maybe you’re in his dreams tonight, you hope as the whirring of the fan lulls you into slumber and you close your eyes, joining him.)

Little Things That Make Me Myself, A Mosaic of My Life Atop My Dad’s Shoulders

By Abigail Tinkham

My dad brought me to the patriots parade when I was younger I was on his shoulders and never slid off the waterslide like my mom watched nervously as I climbed an apple tree fighting with my brother had a seizure in the middle of the floor falling leaves outside raked into piles to jump in my barbie jeep the radio worked but you didn’t believe me that I found the fruit on a bush outside after recess with a friend and not being found until the music teacher came outside I played clarinet in the band for years I was scared to make the bed if the cat was on the ice my dad would teach me how to skate with a bucket on a pond in March freezing as I insisted to go swimming at six animals lined up in a row on my barn goat bucking my head bloody nose filled with powdered sugar from the fair skin burning at the beach while I look for sand dollars with my grandmother never went into the water through the ice up to my knee scraped and bloody while learning to ride a bike in Florida the only vacation always camping in the woods and making s’mores in the backyard afraid of the fox running so fast I became cross country captain crunch cereal was never my favorite umbrella always overhead in the rain while I dance and sing the lead in the second grade musical about friends coming and going on trails through the woods crickets jumping over a hurdle on a horse on accident and staying on game days sitting in the bleachers hoping to catch the ball going right past me as I pick flowers in the field day tie dying shirts covered in ice cream as it drips in the sun overhead as I float in the lake eating lobster rolls down a hill with grass in my hair always long span of time without ever throwing up I grew with my problems growing larger than my abandonment issues a release of my artwork in the paper so proud climbing my first mountain and feeling on top of the world traveling with freedom in jeopardy out of fear of leaving my family memories hard to forget the little things that make me myself holding together a mosaic of my life has become school as I approach another four years old never falling from his shoulders but never going back up

Fire Doesn’t Work

By Amy Saad

As a kid I hated fireworks I never understood the purpose of the excruciating loud noise only for a moment of lights in the sky to diminish within the second I never thought the noise was worth it it isn’t worth it to poison the sky with dangerous fumes just so the little people can look at the lights and cover their ears but people did it anyway and people will continue to do so because it’s pretty and life is short and it was only $20 at the grocery store and you only live once and why not and as I got older I began to appreciate them more sure the noise was annoying but I got used to it and familiarized myself with the popping of the fireworks and was able to watch them through my window with my index finger against my ears and as I got even older the noise no longer bothered me and I stood outside with my neighbors on every 4th of july and listened to the screech as it reached the sky and the BANG as it exploded against the stars and poured bright lights of pretty colors and I never noticed the evolution of my appreciation for the fireworks until I was in the corner in 4th grade and my teacher told us to be quiet if we wanted to survive and I remember watching the news of the school 15 minutes from me and listening to the audio of the shooting inside the school of the people who I went to preschool with and I remember hiding in the biology lab in my highschool with 50 elbows touching as we wept and I texted Mom I love you I’m scared and I remember watching the news of the next school and the next one and the next one with tiny kids and teenagers who looked like me and scared adults with the same shooting and I watch the news today and see the bombings and killings in Palestine and Congo and Sudan and in so many places that I can not name them all and it sounded too familiar to the fireworks that took me so long to love and I can no longer hear the noise of the fireworks without getting flashbacks and I can no longer be at school and hear a bang and think nothing of it and I can no longer hear the sounds of the fireworks outside my window without a million thoughts rushing through my mind and I am so lucky I am so lucky I am so lucky I will forever be luckier than the children who only know popping as a gun and I am so lucky the only popping noises I’ve heard are the fireworks on the 4th of july and New Years and Memorial Day and the birthday of the neighbors and the graduation of the kid down the block and I am so lucky the only popping noise I heard in school was the drill that the police made us do after my friends died 15 minutes away from me