Boxes Checked
Ekphrastic Challenge July 2024
This poem was written in response to the Rattle® Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge for July 2024 and was ultimately not selected. You can find more information here.
https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/
Boxes Checked
I am boiled down
To a square on a piece of paper
Select what applies for:
My gender
My race
My religion
My political party
And that box
That tiny little box
So constraining
Who I am is
Watered down
To one of only a few options
My thoughts
My beliefs
My dreams
My identity
Gone
I become
Faceless
All that is seen is what
Can be quantified and measured
But I am so much more
Than those scratches on a page
Than those rudimentary descriptions
I am my humanity
And it is
Unable to be labeled
Submitted under MRB
About the Creator
Rae Fairchild (MRB)
I love to write; putting pen to paper fills my heart and calms my soul!
Rae Fairchild is my pen name. (Because why not? Pseudonyms are cool!)
I do publish elsewhere under my real name, M.R.B.
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'20/20'
"Do It Again" the track that would ultimately open the Beach Boys final album on Capitol Records which was released on February 10th 1969 had originally been released as a single in August of 1968. The track was the first of many post-Pet Sounds era throwbacks to the early Beach Boys sound which would become continually more cliched and eventually lead the Beach Boys to the level of self-parody they would eventually succumb to in the 1980s while their closest contemporaries The Beatles nearing the end of their run in 1969 would go on to be viewed as the most influential band of all time. However, the song itself is not bad on its surface, and it opens with a futuristic sounding (for 1969) drumbeat captured by then-Beach Boys engineer Stephen Desper using tape delays on the drums performed by Dennis Wilson and John Guerin. The song has been re-recorded numerous times over the years on various Beach Boys-related projects most notably the 2011 re-recording at Capitol studios featuring the five surviving Beach Boys at the time backed instrumentally by various members of both the Brian Wilson Band and Mike Loves touring "Beach Boys" to promote the then upcoming Beach Boys 50th Anniversary reunion tour in 2012. The hammering and power drill sound at the end of the song was an excerpt from a track called "Workshop" that was to be a part of the uncompleted "SMiLE" album.
By Sean Callaghan7 days ago in Beat
Comments (1)
Wow. So powerful. So true! So well expressed. We are so much more than what can be put on paper.