A Survivors Poem

A Survivor's Poem

By Denay Fields

Give me a drink. I have been

bound here for three days
watching the wretched water

have its way
destroying and terrorizing

anything in its path
and here I stand thirsty

in the Aftermath
Stand . . . I stand when waves

of death surround me
when treacherous floods

attempt to swallow me
I look to the left there is water
I look to the right there is water
I look for my children there is water
I look for my home

and all I see is water
But I’m here

and I’m looking for water
not the kind I can drink

and be thirsty again
but something that will become

in me a fountain
of water springing up

into everlasting life
I call on the name of the Lord

and I receive WATER
Living Water, that rescues me

and lifts me from the raging sea
It could be me

that my friends and family mourn
But my God delivers me from the storm
despite my downfalls and thorns
The rescuers, the helpers

they may be late
but the Lord saves me

for His name's sake
So in the midst of the hurricane

waters and winds that blow
My Lord saves me to make

His mighty power known
So I will drink His living water

I will thirst no more
I will forever call

upon the name of the Lord

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posted 11 September 2005

Denay Fields a.k.a Inspyre was raised as a preacher's kid on Eastern Shore, Maryland. She has been writing and reciting poetry since August 2004. She gives God all the glory for the gifts He has blessed her with. She currently performs at women's conferences, youth group meetings, and other events in the area. She is associated with Spoken World productions which originated on the Eastern Shore. As her stage name declares, she is passionate and purpose driven to inspire and minister to people all over the world. She resides in Baltimore and can be contacted at denay_fields@yahoo.com

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The Katrina Papers a Journal of Trauma and Recovery
By Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

The Katrina Papers is not your average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of writing, including intellectual autobiography, personal narrative, political/cultural analysis, spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry. Though it is the record of one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a part of his life and work as a scholar, political activist, and professor. The Katrina Papers provides space not only for the traumatic events but also for ruminations on authors such as Richard Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The result is a complex though thoroughly accessible book. The struggle with form—the search for a medium proper to the complex social, personal, and political ramifications of an event unprecedented in this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of The Katrina Papers. It depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view which takes the local as its nexus for understanding the global. It resists the temptation to simplify or clarify when simplification and clarification are not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very direct, but he always refuses to simplify the complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the process and the historical moment that he is witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer

The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95

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update 20 April 2010