Carrie

Carrie

The Final Solution. That simple. That was it.

I couldn’t be seeing this. Heil Hitler. Nobody is like him. Now you cry. Madman’s Hell. My God. Murderer.

I see them all dead. Prisoner on the Hell Planet. No sleep and no food. So peaceful, so quiet. Ran into the barbed wire to commit suicide. Death march. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Die fast. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Surrounded.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I don’t want to do this. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Everybody to take care of himself. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Never wanting to know anybody. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They’re not going to take my soul. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Struggling to survive. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Don’t give up. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clever. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Manpower.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I promise. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At this place. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Historic moment. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tell stories. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Safety. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journey.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That was it. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That simple. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Final Solution.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rationale: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My found poem revolves around the ideas of the will to live and not giving up. I chose these themes because so many of the people that told their stories in “The Last Days” and Vladek in “Maus” didn’t give up through all the hardships they had to overcome. Listening to the stories of survivors I thought about how courageous and mentally tough they were to endure the harshness of the Holocaust. They endured unthinkable punishments and never gave up hope and never gave up the will to stay alive. The Holocaust was a series of inhumane acts by the Nazis towards the Jews. Hitler considered them to be a race, not as a religion, and not as humans. I start in my poem with a short first stanza, repeating "that" at the beginning of the second and third lines, making the "The Final Solution" seem to be an easy step. The second stanza brings up Hitler, mentioning the sign of respect and finishing with words that describe how he appears to outsiders, how frightening he is. My third stanza describes the harsh conditions that the Jews were forced to live in, and what some people would do to escape, even if that meant death. This stanza also describes the onlooker's perspective, how they see things, and how that fuels them to keep surviving. My fourth stanza puts a lot of emphasis on what went through people's minds and how you had to focus on yourself in order to survive. My fifth stanza are what this person is looking ahead about, how they knew they were a part of something that they needed to tell the world about and how it was their duty to tell it, and in order to tell it: to not give up hope. I finish my poem with a reverse of my very first stanza, to complete the thoughts of the "simplicity" of killing all those innocent people, and how they couldn't give up the will to live.