Realization

“We’re the land of the free and home of the brave”

Well 180 of 206 sovereign nations have freedom

And there is a fine line between bravery and ignorance

We used to be lead by great, fearless men

Who stood for what was right, not what they wanted

“What makes us number one?” many ask

We are no longer number one in this world

What we are in this world is

7^th in literacy

27^th in math

22^nd in science

49^th in life expectancy

178^th in infant mortality

3^rd in median household income

And 4^th in imports

What do you mean number one?

However, we are number one in

Number of incarcerated citizens per capita

And defense spending

We explored the universe

Made the greatest technological advances the world has seen

And we never used to boast about it

But now we can’t build a 35E bridge to get across town

We no longer have a war on poverty,
We have what feels like a war on the impoverished

We can no longer assume we are number one

We have to prove it.

                From the reading the very first paragraph and the second suggestion given on pg. 189 were the most helpful. The first paragraph talks about how we should be ‘afraid’ to edit in fear of losing that raw emotion. This is one of the reasons I don’t like editing poems, especially this one since it was on something we feel strongly about. It’s hard to write something you really like then come back and tear it apart and maybe even stray from your original idea to a better one. Then the second suggestion talks about how changing the lay out and structure on a poem. I did this almost as another form of punctuation. By isolating certain lines it makes them more punctual and forceful. It allows for your reader to see how you felt when writing the poem. It’s something I utilized in this poem and will continue to do as part of the revising process.