Tag Archives: 2011

Poetry

The Surfman’s Song

The Surfman’s Song

Along the cold and lonely coast

In storms the surfmen wander

Watching for the sailing ships

That flounder in the water

Through lonely, cold and stormy nights

The surfmen watch the tide

For if a ship wrecks on the coast

They go out to rescue lives

On a bitter winter night

A storm batters the shore

The surfmen huddle round the fire

As the wind rattles the door

Their comrade bursts into the room

The snow thick on his coat

And in a breathless voice he says

“There’s a ship wrecked off the coast”

The keeper jumps up from his chair

A grimness in his eye

“Come boys, we have work to do!”

He glares up at the sky

“Go fetch the boats!” he orders now

“Though the night be chill and black,

Our orders say we must go out

Nothing ’bout coming back”

They drag the boat down to the beach

Where the waves crash on the sand

They push the boat into the surf

As the wind stiffens their hands

Then to the ship the surfmen row

Though the sea fights with all her might

For on the wind the sailor’s cries

Call them into the night

The waves crash hard and thundering

The wind shrieks shrill and long

The snow flies down in flurries chill

Rain freezes where it falls

But the surfmen still pull on their oars

And pay no heed to the gale

Seven sailors need their aid

In the snow, the sleet and hail

They reach the ship that’s going down

And pull the sailors in

Then back to shore they set their sights

And row into the wind

They come to shore and to their fire

To rest upon the land

The keeper still is looking out

In case they’re needed ‘gain

Along the cold and lonely coast

In storms the surfmen wander

Watching for the sailing ships

That flounder in the water

Through lonely, cold and stormy nights

The surfmen watch the tide

For if a ship wrecks on the coast

They go out to rescue lives

Tuppence Van de Vaarst (2nd Place in Poetry)

Editor

From the Editor’s Desk – 2011

From the Editor’s Desk –

The editors and judges of The Walrus are pleased to offer you Volume 8. The Walrus is an allusion to Lewis Carroll’s narrative poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” which appeared in Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass.  And like the offshore bed of oysters that the Walrus and the Carpenter encounter while walking along the beach, I hope you all enjoy the artistic accomplishments presented in this publication. The Walrus is a journal of the works by the students in the Communications and Humanities Division of the Woodbridge Campus, Northern Virginia Community College, 2010-2011.  The numerous literary and visual pieces that comprise this issue demonstrate the talent and innovation of the Woodbridge campus.  Additionally, these works received awards during this year’s 2011 Festival of the Arts contest.

The Walrus Literary Committee and Editorial Staff include NOVA faculty members Andrew Young and Robert Bausch and NOVA student Meghan Thomas who designed the layout for this year’s edition. The judges for the awards in the literary categories were English faculty Kelly Cochran, Deanna Fleischmann, Theana Kastens, and Brenda Meisel. The judge for the art awards was Phil Davis, the Assistant Director of Gateway Arts Exchange in Brentwood, Maryland and a former NOVA art faculty member. These individuals had the difficult task of selecting what submissions should be honored.

The Walrus is grateful to the many students who submitted their writing and art for consideration this year.  The committee and judges wish they could have included more submissions; however, many pieces had to go unpublished. We hope that no one is discouraged by this and that students whose work was not selected for this issue will submit again next year.

I hope you will enjoy these compelling works of the imagination.

Andrew C. Young

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

–          Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and The Carpenter” Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872