Wildred

Posted bywordsandcoffee1Posted inPoetry, W3 PromptsTags:, , , , , , , , 
Paint your feet in empty footsteps over uncharted spacious wonders, to bask in the desolate aura of freedom.
Tremble in beloved and hapless isolation, under a cloudless sky,
to cringe when nature ignores your name.

I read about a young man who hitchhiked into Alaskan wilderness,
looking for the meaning of life; he lived in an abandoned bus, camera capturing the empty space,
until nature revealed her apathy.

We feel the pull of society until we're lulled away, 
to boggy wilds
and the feel of subzero wind screaming across a treeless prairie miles from the nearest town. 
Taste the calm of nowhere burdened with the dread of true emptiness.

I wrote this poem for the Wea’ve Written Weekly prompt #172. This week’s prompt was provided by Violet, who asks us to explore the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a resource I’d never heard of but found both haunting and intriguing. Here are the details of the prompt:

Choose a word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and make it the title of your poem. Your poem should either use the word directly or capture the essence of its meaning. Include a direct link to the word’s page so readers can explore its definition and origin. Write in any poetic form you wish.

Here is the link to the specific word I selected, “wildred“. There were a few other words that I found inspiring as well; I could definitely see myself returning to this dictionary for future writing projects.

This word reminded me of the novel, “Into the Wild”, written by Jon Krakauer about the true story of Christopher McCandless, who, after his graduation from Emory University in the early 1990s, donated his money and wandered off the grid, dying a few months later in the Alaskan wilderness. We read this book in a class I used to teach back when I still taught high school (sadly, I don’t have any opportunities to teach any novels in my current college courses). We’d also watch the movie, which has an amazing soundtrack by Eddie Vedder; I’ll include a link to one of the songs that includes images from the movie. I think this song and the story evoke “wildred”:

32 thoughts on “Wildred”

    1. Thank you! I really enjoyed exploring the words in this dictionary. And I’m glad you enjoyed the poem and the music of Eddie Vedder. I love 90s alternative rock, so I knew him as a musician from Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog, but this soundtrack is definitely a more chill side to his music.

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  3. Sarah, your poem embodies the images of wildred perfectly!! I saw the movie – it was sad… but not in the sense that his life was “wasted” but rather that he didn’t survive to tell his own story.

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    1. Thank you! Yes, I agree. I think he accomplished much of what he set out to do; the part of the book and movie that really hit me in the guts is that when he finally decided he was ready to return back to society and share his story with others is just when he couldn’t make it out.

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  4. I used to live only a few miles from where they found Christopher McCandless. His bus is currently just up the road from where I currently live at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His story is indeed the embodiment of this word- and it was brilliant of you to draw our attention to a real-world event in which- a young man truly- “intruded on a conversation that had nothing to do with” him. Alasa is a formidable foe- and yet, every year we have people trying to compete against something they cannot truly comprehend- and unfortunately few live to tell their story. Loved this.

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    1. Thank you. Wow, that is fascinating that you lived so close! The wilderness of Alaska terrifies me in a way, because I’ve been lost in the woods in remote northern parts of Wisconsin (just for short bouts of time), and I know just how much more uncharted acreage exists in Alaska and how much more remote it is. I imagine it’s a place where humans must feel so small compared to nature. Alaska is still on my bucket list, though, because it looks like one of the most majestic places in the world, as far as I can tell.

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  5. I feel the mix of awe and dread in your lines, Sarah—“to cringe when nature ignores your name” really hits me. Your reflection on Into the Wild ties the word beautifully to real human longing and its risks.

    ~David

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    1. Thank you! It’s a fascinating story, and very emotional. I think everyone has that point in their life where they ask, “What if I do [insert whatever crazy thing you’re passionate about that society would heavily disapprove of]”, and McCandless just went out and did it.

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    1. Thank you! As usual, the book is a bit better, at least in my opinion. There were a couple scenes I had to skip over with a high school audience, but overall, they did a great job capturing all of the emotions that McCandless probably felt out in the wild.

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