Hello Friends,
Laura Da’ is an Eastern Shawnee poet and teacher who lives near Seattle, Washington. Today’s poem can be found in her 2015 collection Tributaries.
Enjoy.
Ællen
Laura Da’ is an Eastern Shawnee poet and teacher who lives near Seattle, Washington. Today’s poem can be found in her 2015 collection Tributaries.
Enjoy.
Ællen
Passive Voice
I use a trick to teach students
how to avoid passive voice.
Circle the verbs.
Imagine inserting “by zombies”
after each one.
Have the words been claimed
by the flesh-hungry undead?
If so, passive voice.
I wonder if these
six graders will recollect,
on summer vacation,
as they stretch their legs
on the way home
from Yellowstone or Yosemite
and the byway’s historic marker
beckons them to the
site of an Indian village—
Where trouble was brewing,
Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.
Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.
Where most were women and children.
Riveted bramble of passive verbs
etched in wood—
stripped hands
breaking up from the dry ground
to pinch the meat
of their young red tongues.
■
I use a trick to teach students
how to avoid passive voice.
Circle the verbs.
Imagine inserting “by zombies”
after each one.
Have the words been claimed
by the flesh-hungry undead?
If so, passive voice.
I wonder if these
six graders will recollect,
on summer vacation,
as they stretch their legs
on the way home
from Yellowstone or Yosemite
and the byway’s historic marker
beckons them to the
site of an Indian village—
Where trouble was brewing,
Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.
Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.
Where most were women and children.
Riveted bramble of passive verbs
etched in wood—
stripped hands
breaking up from the dry ground
to pinch the meat
of their young red tongues.
■