College Admission Essay

Ryan Thomas 11/1/07 Admissions Essay, Topic #1 Phoenix Rising I sat still, clutching the little book in my hands, gripping it so strongly I feared my trembling hands might tear it in two before I could muster up the courage to open it. After three months of steadily increasing anxiety, the day I had been awaiting and dreading had arrived. Finally, I took a few deep breaths, composed myself, and slowly opened the book to the Table of Contents. Would my poem even be there? Had it been so horrible that the editors simply threw it out? But no – not only was my poem included in the Phoenix, but it had the honor of being the first in the magazine! Yet I was still just as nervous. Even the poem’s prominent position, in any other case an honor, was now a source of alarm! I would have to wait, now perhaps more anxious than before, to see if my fears would be realized. Why such inner drama over a simple poem? Well, since the start of school nine months before, I’d been working on a poem. Not knowing what is considered a “normal” timeline for a poem, I can only say that this was, for me, an extremely long time to be working on any one composition. But this poem was special. “The Doorman”, as I named it, is only about a page long. It has no rhyme scheme whatsoever; it has no formulaic structure; it has no clear division (the stanzas seen in the magazine were decided at the last minute; even then they weren’t clean, or well-thought-out). Yet I was able, somehow, to make a man come to life on the page, or so I was told. Whatever the case, I felt that this was the best I’d ever done with a poem. Until then, none of my poems or ideas ever ventured forth from the realm of half-formed creation, that misty land between oblivion and art.

Jason’s Homework: P. 223, 2, 4, 5, 10, 15, 23, 36