And From H3, Despair Descends

This is the second poem I wrote for my creative writing assessment. It's the one I like the most, and am perhaps most proud of, between the two (poems); I think it's beautiful, and that's what I'm trying to convey.

***

Infinitesimal

Three pieces of sky,
one evening;
sunset, swirling colours on my right;
stars, peeking through the curtain of night;
storm, brooding on my left
a panorama spread above me
like an Eden tapestry.

I revel in the
– almost silence.
A footfall, a sneeze, a sigh;
even out here in this vast emptiness,
horizon to horizon
as if the world and everything in it
did not exist,
a dream or some fantasy.

To lie on the earth of our ancestors
is to feel the heartbeat of our motherland;
the place from whence we came
to which we still belong.

Here it is easy to imagine
a nomadic journey of families
hunting, gathering,
dwelling, migrating,
roaming at season’s whim,
two million years ago.

Here it is easy to see
(not blinded by buildings)
the grandeur of Her rightful majesty
Mother Nature in her timelessness,
the scope of man so infinitesimal
by comparison.

Here it is easy to breathe
not just the unsullied air
(no smoke, no smog, no smell)
but the taste of freedom;
for all sense of time is lost here,
where the dust has blown for centuries,
and cloaks the shores of our origins.

This is where human nature unfolds.

***

Aims and influences:
Infinitesimal is based on my travels to Africa two years ago and in particular, one night spent on the Makgadigadi Salt Pan of Botswana. On this occasion I was much influenced by the sheer scale and beauty of a place so removed from the urban hustle and bustle of day to day life.
My current study of An Ecological History of Humanity has also been powerful in the ideas and trigger for writing this poem, as we have been considering the evolution of mankind out of Africa as well as the development the human nature, that is, the ability to feel emotion.

Today I found out the mark and feedback from my tutor. I recieved a much lower mark than I expected. First, let me explain;*

H1 = top of the top, first class honours (excellent); 80%-100%
H2A = second class honours level A (very good); 75%-79%**
H2B = second class honours level B (good); 70%-74%
H3 = third class honours (competent); 65%-69%
P = pass (satisfactory); 50%-64%
N = fail (not satisfactory); 0%-49%

I got an H3. Competent, for goodness bloody sake. Like I've never written poetry before and I've figured out how to do it?! I'm finding this hard to deal with because I thought my poetry better than that. I believe(d) that what I had to say - and how I said - was meaningful and poignant, perhaps not on a great level, but at least in some way. It's hard to accept a mark like that when it comes to poetry, because you open yourself up, you offer your personal feelings to a tutor on a page, who responds by saying "I thought you bit off more than you could write about at your level." Hardly constructive. (Oh, no, wait; I "show promise." Work at it, kid, you might break the big time, maybe...never?!)

It's just disappointing, almost to the point of crushing one's writing self-esteem. It's clearly highly subjective; there appears to be no criteria on which it was marked, except for "appeal to tutor," I was only given a grade boundary, not a specific percentage, and I seem to have been awarded an H3+. WTF? You can't have it both ways and say it sucks but it's a good effort.

At least I'm getting good marks in one subject; I scored 8.5/10 for a small piece I wrote on the impact of climate change on human migration for An Ecological History of Humanity (my breadth subject.)

I don't think I've explained my subject choices, after my initial debate over them;
-Creative Writing (my intended major)
-Intermediate Spanish Language and Culture (contributing towards a Diploma in Modern Languages)
-Democracy, a compulsory Interdisciplinary Foundation subject (IDF) and, though I enjoy it, waste of time, considering it doesn't lead to second year subjects and simply limits the number of arts subjects I can do a semester
-An Ecological History of Humanity

Stay tuned for the results of my Democracy bibliography - it could be interesting, but not quite so devastating (because my heart won't be bruised.)

x
Just a girl

*And I quote the IDF handbook...
**This is the level required in all one's subjects to maintain a scholarship, CSP place or be considered elegible for exchange. I am on a CSP place and hope to achieve the latter.