In honor of the upcoming release of our newest edition of the Long River Review, the team behind the magazine has started a community-wide poem to spread both awareness of this release and to bond our wonderful community by awakening the inner poet, we all have within us. Linked between classes, championships, husky pride, clubs, endless hours sharing the space of good ol’ homer babbige, student union late nights, off-campus, and on-campus activities, the list goes on, why not add lines of poetry to the mix? Doesn’t it sound charming? Well to start off the charm, we decided to kick-start this endless poem at our bar night, at none other, than our very own Ted’s. Some lines are more charming than others. But who said all art is charming? The human psyche is a wide and miscellaneous place capable of creating dark, quirky, happy, and ALL kinds of work. We hope to collect a line of poetry from every Uconn husky on the planet! Aim big right?
Our starting line to inspire us is a quote we retrieved from Art Spiegelman, an extremely talented cartoonist, who just recently came to speak at our very own Uconn Jorgenson. The quote is…
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.” – Art Spiegelman
…I know. Well, I don’t really know and I think that’s the point. The quote can be open to interpretation. It’s one of those quotes that you read once and you love, but you don’t quite fully understand it and the depth it contains. It sits with you and everyday it resonates a little more and you start to understand it in different ways. Feel it in different ways. For the people I approached at the bar though, they didn’t have much time to let it resonate. So, you guys are getting a little preview here. What I asked people to do is, read the quote, and then as if it were the starting line of your poem, what would your next line be? Bounce off the words, let them inspire you and whatever feels right, comes next. Some people said, “I don’t write poetry. I’m not a poet. I’m not a writer.” “Should I rhyme?” “I don’t know what to write!” In which I replied, “write down whatever it makes you feel.” It doesn’t have to continue on from that line. Writing down whatever this line sparked in you, even if it didn’t spark anything at all. Just blurt out the next thing thats comes to you! That is art sometimes. And that is a little bit of you, on paper. There is no “correct” poetry. It can be subjective. Being a “writer,” can be a subjective role in itself. Writers don’t wake up one day with a little man holding a scroll next to them saying, “congrats! your now an official writer.” Writing is expressing yourself. A line of poetry can be pretty much anything. And these are some of the lines we got…
“The things that I’ve lost are the things that I miss the most.”
(Yes, we are handing out wavy blue paper to write these on, and yes they will be arranged in a ‘river-like’ fashion placed somewhere flowing around campus. So, if you choose to participate in which I will disclose your next opportunity to at the end, you can find your quote and say hey friends! that was me! I’m so poetic. hehe. Or you can remain ~anonymous~ which oh so poetic in itself.)
Now more lines! So, remember it starts, “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all…
Except when you loved poop…then it stinks either way.” (my personal fave)
“It’s better to have loved and lost than to have loved and lost your keys.” (ha!)
“It is better to have gotten lost than to have never gotten at all.” (Ow Ow)
“But Mac and Cheese was always there for me.” (true)
“To not love is to not know thy self, to not know thyself is to not THINK.”
“…said a man who always lost. He had not a single competitive gene in his system.”
“Unless it’s losing that creepy guy and then you’re in the clear blue sky.”
“For to have lost is to learn that if you have loved enough you had never lost at all.”
“The crash of the wave is not the end, but merely a reflection of the past, present, and future.”
“Truth. I had a boyfriend I loved but then I cheated on him. But I learned alot about myself. We dated for 3 and half years.”
“Is there a difference between love and loss.”
“…and Ted’s bar should be your only cost.”
“I never knew her real name, but she reminded me of the wind.”
(THESE ARE YOUR FELLOW UCONN STUDENTS REMEMBER! SOME NON-ENGLISH MAJORS TOO)
“Let love last in the spring, summer, winter and fall.”
“So lose me now or choose to have never met me.”
starting quote: “to have loved and lost is better to have never lost at all…
a sorrowful smile in a happy place.”
“If you ain’t named Spiegelman than you really dropped the ball.”
“I sure drank a lot, I hope I don’t fall.” (getting later in the night.)
“Did she notice me? Would it matter if she did? Would it matter if she didn’t? Of course it does, she’s buying.”
“Losing something sucks a lot. Especially when you love them.”
“But the first love is always the hardest fall.”
“The chardonnay barked at the wall.”
“The batch of straws groaned heavy with malice.”
“I’m not feeling creative at all. Also said by Poll Wall.”
“But if I have to lose it all. I hope I lost it all on you.”
“Life is like water going down a drain, swirling around the void.”
That’s all the quotes we gathered from that night! Awesome, right? Myself and the Long River Team will be meeting Monday, April 28th, 11:30 AM – 1:30 AM, at Fairfield way handing out more slips, looking for more lines from you! We are also open to students picking out other lines that students have written to inspire their next continued line. REMEMBER POETRY IS ART, AND ART IS EXPRESSION. COME MEET US THIS MONDAY! WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR LINES! WHATEVER THEY MAY BE.
