From Bev: Running Elections while falling in love

They sent me to Greece to monitor the problems
the problems with Syriza and Tsipras –
to make sure that the Greece Elections
weren’t going to fall apart, but

all I can do is listen and listen
to Ed Sheeran. Maybe it’s because
I don’t know if I am in love
am I in love?
What is love?

Is it when I’m willing to sit here in London
Wishing I was with my love, eating Chilean desserts?
Maybe it is watching Top Gearwith my friends, while only
wanting to be with you.

But this, this is my Public Duty, this is what I have to do
My boyfriend is no Robbie Savage or Rosicky, but I still love him
with all my heart.

Sitting together, we could probably do better
movie reviews than UkipFilmTitles.

That’s it
I’ve decided
I think I am in love.
Forget these Greece Elections.
—–

Wow. I really didn’t think this would be as difficult as it was. I was scrolling through the assignments and found: Twitter Trends Turned Lyrical Poetry. And I thought, okay Mariah, let’s see what this journalism major as taught you about poetry. The answer….nothing. I’ve never really been the creative type. I have a lot of sass, but I’m pretty straight forward and just say what I am thinking. Poetry was never my thing, and after this, I still don’t think it is.  The first time I took a stab at making this poem, I just went with good ol’ FredVegas as my location. And this is what I got:

What does someone even do with that? Come on Fred, do better next time. So I decided that I wanted to be adventurous and see what was happening somewhere else. I’m currently trying to plan a summer-post graduation trip to London (haven’t told the parents this so I hope they don’t figure the internet out anytime soon), so I went to see what was happening there, and WOW – they really gave me something to work with. They also seem more interested in the Greece elections, which I really appreciate, because apparently I’m the only one around here that cares about those…

So after getting my thoughts together, I thought that I would use this poem to expand on my character, Bev, and write a poem from her perspectives. So I screenshotted (Google Chrome says this is not a word, but it is now) the trends, put them in my new post and just started writing about things that interested Bev. And the result was that beautiful piece of poetry before you.

I think this assignment is interesting. It really allows you to use social media in a different and unexpected way that ends in some form of art. I don’t think I would ever submit this poetry for an award, but at least I have something to show my parents one day This assignment does what UMW as a whole does – it forces you to think, come up with a plan and apply it in a creative way, so hats off to the creator!