the sky sinks its blue teeth
into the mountains.
Rising on pure will

(the lurch & lift-off,
the sudden swing
into wide, white snow),

I encourage the cable.
Past the wind
& crossed tips of my skis
& the mauve shadows of pines
& the spoor of bears
& deer,

I speak to my fear,
rising, riding,
finding myself

the only thing
between snow & sky,
the link
that holds it all together.

Halfway up the wire,
we stop,
slide back a little

(a whirr of pulleys).

Astronauts circle above us today
in the television blue of space.

But the thin withers of alps
are waiting to take us too,
& this might be the moon!

We move!

Friends, this is a toy
merely for reaching mountains

merely
for skiing down.

& now we're dangling
like charms on the same bracelet

or upsidedown tightrope people
(a colossal circus!)

or absurd winged walkers,
angels in animal fur,

with mittened hands waving

& fear turning

& the mountain
like a fisherman,

reeling us all in.

So we land
on the windy peak,
touch skis to snow,
are married to our purple shadows,
& ski back down
to the unimaginable valley

leaving no footprints.

~Pete Remington

For an Earth Landing

By: Erica Jong

    If you are happy it does not have to make sense to anyone. The joy in skiing is going up a mountain and then sliding down it with boards on your feet, it does not make sense to people who have never done it. Skiing may seem pointless to those who do not participate, but that is the point and joy in it. In the poem For an Earth-Landing by Erica Jong she is describing the feelings of being on a chairlift. Then the author writes about the character going down the mountain just to go up again.

Friends, this is a toy
merely for reaching mountains

merely
for skiing down.

& now we're dangling
like charms on the same bracelet

or upside down tightrope people

The author writes with some funny metaphors and themes which are good representations of skiing. These metaphors can also be understood by anyone. This emphasizes how whatever gives you joy does not have to be understood by anyone else. That is important because skiing makes some people happy but it could be anything else in your life. Whatever gives you joy does not have to make sense to anyone else.

Reflection:

I found this poem while I was searching the internet for poems relating to skiing. I wanted to do a poem about skiing because I knew that there would be good poems written about it and skiing is a large part of my life. That made the WW Fenn assignment better because it is always my least favorite assignment of the whole year. This poem also has some other meanings. The first is that the poem compares riding the ski lift and the sky in the mountains to being an astronaut floating around in space. I never realized it but the sensation that comes over your body while you are on a chairlift seems like it would be similar to what outer space feels like.I thought this comparison was super interesting because The second meaning of the poem is how pointless skiing is because you ride up the mountain then slide down and go back up the mountain. I thought the way the poem talks about the agony of skiing was funny and appealing to me. 

Post Graded: 

I still hate this assignment for many reasons but the main reason is because before I preform I have the poem fully memorized and then under the pressure my brain goes blank. After I was done preforming I felt a massive release of stress. Then I was happy that I had completed my least favorite assignment of the year.