passive voice

I am increasingly frustrated by the gigantic mountain of obstacles in trying to teach basic writing skills to college freshmen and sophomores. I feel like I am resisting an entire generation's susceptibility to technology and taking the easy way out. But this poem made me smile today. 

Also, I am celebrating today with a little happy dance because it is my last teaching Monday until the end of maternity leave in April. Classes end tomorrow night at 9pm thanks so the truncated semester. For now, I refuse to think about the piles of grading due in a few weeks. 

Time is so weird, but bring on the non-alcoholic bubbly anyways! 

Passive Voice

I use a trick to teach students
how to avoid passive voice.

Circle the verbs.
Imagine inserting “by zombies”
after each one.

Have the words been claimed
by the flesh-hungry undead?
If so, passive voice.

I wonder if these
sixth graders will recollect,
on summer vacation,
as they stretch their legs
on the way home
from Yellowstone or Yosemite
and the byway’s historical marker
beckons them to the
site of an Indian village—

Where trouble was brewing.
Where, after further hostilities, the army was directed to enter.
Where the village was razed after the skirmish occurred.
Where most were women and children.

Riveted bramble of passive verbs
etched in wood—
stripped hands
breaking up from the dry ground
to pinch the meat
of their young red tongues.

Laura Da’ studied at the University of Washington and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the author of Instruments of the True Measure (University of Arizona Press, 2018) and Tributaries (University of Arizona Press, 2015), which received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.  She is the recipient of fellowships from Hugo House and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Da’ who is Eastern Shawnee, lives near Seattle, Washington.


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