Slice of Life: What I Wrote In Our WMWP Writing Marathon

Writing Marathon at SPAR(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

I helped organize and facilitate a writing marathon for the National Day on Writing and Write Out on Sunday at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, and like the 18 educators who signed up to take part in the event, I wrote my way throughout the afternoon, inspired by the museum and its archives. We had themed inspiration stations set up around the Armory to help spark ideas.

You can sense in my writing some the tension behind being inside a historical place that made the weapons that helped the US win wars through guns and arms. This is a tension I always feel when running programs for teachers and summer camps for middle school students at the Springfield Armory. I once wrote about this idea and titled it What To Do When Your Classroom is Filled with Guns.

Here are snippets and rough pieces of mine from each of the writing areas.

Writing: The Welder

Special Photo Exhibit

The Welder

Obscured by
flames and fire —
the welder molds
iron and steel
into arms —
the camera rebels
the bright heat light
shrouded by aura,
and those of us who watch
from time and distance
only notice the moment,
frozen

Writing: Dear Women of the Armory

Industry Display: Worker Group Photo

Dear Women of the Armory,

Thank you. I’m sure stepping into a national arms manufacturing plant — with the world at war and no end in sight — could not have been an easy choice. Maybe even you had your doubts — about war, about guns, about your own skills. I am sure Society’s story of you until now, as a woman, was at home, not here, but events forced Society’s hand. And you answered the call. You learned a complicated, intricate job. You were part of a team. You made a difference. Who knows what price you paid. Did you leave children each day or night at home to come here? Did you have a husband at war, always on your mind? Did you worry about the outcome of the battles abroad? Whatever it was that kept your mind concerned, you did your job here, and you did it well. You may not have realized it at the time, but your efforts and the efforts of many more women like you began a cultural shift in the way women would forever be seen in society. You changed the world. Thank you.

Wartime Sisters passages

Reading an excerpt of The Wartime Sisters novel and Taking the Character for a Walk (with apologies to author Lynda Cohen Loigman)

Millie rarely wonders too much at the gun beyond the assembly line, where her fingers move over the lock plate as if it were the most common task in the world. It’s all motion — this goes here, this goes there. Millie only sees the moment in front of her.

It’s at those other times, when everyone has gone home and her own shared household with her sister goes quiet, that she thinks more about what her work really is, and how what she is building day after day will be used. A bullet, in the chamber, fired down the long barrel, flying through air, penetrating a target. And the target, she knows, is a person, a human person, and that person might be killed by the very work she is doing.

She is the first step in the death of someone.

Or the first step in saving someone’s life, she tells herself, too. Not killing someone. Saving someone. A brother, or a father, or a husband, or a neighbor. She nearly convinces herself of the truth of it.

Writing: To Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Poetic Response to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘Organ of Muskets’ (1844)

Whose dark future
hides in the barrel
of the guns in this
tune-less accordion —

surely, ours;

and I fear the sounds
grow ever louder, never
fainter —

Will it ever cease
into peace?

Or will the bullet travel faster
by the hour?

Why is it that power only finds
its home in violence, and never
in understanding –

Such silence

Peace (writing it out),
Kevin

 

 

6 Comments
  1. Ahhh! You’re in my hometown! What an amazing experience!! I love how you used the space to inspire your writing. Thank you so much for sharing this!

    • Yep. Your hometown. Finding spaces to inspire writing is always intriguing. That so many local educators joined us was heartening, and many had never stepped foot into the museum before … so, even better ..
      Kevin

  2. Writing at its best, seeing the truth, that it is made of both horror and beauty. As with life, we can’t shut our eyes to it. In the hardest realities we must carve out pockets of peace – within ourselves, wherever life takes us. Immense power in this post and what strikes me most is writing from a place of gratitude. I find that is most often my wellspring. Or my pocket of peace.

  3. So many fascinating responses here. I sense your tension and love how beautifully you address it. Also, I love the idea of a write-in (write out?). Wonder how I could organize something like that in my area. Was it all teachers? So so cool. Thank you for sharing your snippets.

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