https://postimg.cc/r0YNzC7D (if this doesn't work, try: https://i.postimg.cc/d3JHH5Bj/TEWWG-Invitation-Responses-2-4-Dec-2-2020-at-10-23-PM.png)

“As I mourn for my husband, I realize the toll he has taken on me. However, I will start from the beginning.<br> Joseph… well, Jodie. Everyone loves to call him that. It makes me cringe when I hear that name in any sort of conversation. Even uttering it myself goes against every value I was brought up with. I feel like it fuels his ego, up and up the gauge goes until it goes into the unknown realm of numbers. How many tanks does he need to burst? Lash out, scream, or relax and take it all in, what he has created. What has he created? Mayor of a town, sure, but he has created an unstable woman that isn’t sure about her next moves in life purely for his bad emotional habits. The minute I laid eyes on him, I was wrapped around his big, grotesque finger. I think he completely manipulated me from the very beginning, and knew that I was so desperate to start something new that I didn’t even notice it. That was the biggest mistake of all. I wonder what he needed me for… what he needed to boost himself to ruin me at the same time? I think he was going to go for as long as possible to try and play his little game with everyone, even you all, and get to the “top.” At this point, there is no top. We are all in this small town, many of us having nothing bigger coming for them, and will spend generations living here. Don’t you want to go out and do something else? Something that’s good for yourself? As I live here, I feel trapped. Possibly, this is purely because of him. I am sure that I would not feel trapped if I chose to live here on my own, living by my own standards and my own morals rather than being tugged on like a marionette in the window of a toy store. Some of you were puppets to Joseph, doing what he says with no say in if you wanted it or not. The humility that followed… that was the worst of all. And so I stand in front of you all saying one thing confidently. I am happy that Jodie is dead so I can live again.”

Janie set down her pen. The ink seemed to jump out of it. She touched the tip; hot with the fury inside of her. She sat there, veil on her hair draping down to her back, reading what she had written over and over. She was asked, of course, to write something for Jodie's funeral, but when she was honest with herself, she knew there was nothing more vile than to lie and commemorate him on the things he did that hurt her the most. 

She picked up the paper, crumpled it up, and threw it into the trash. 

https://youtu.be/Gb4skfRHV5M

Now, I know that The Muck sounds and looks to be a place that isn’t desirable, but through this photo and video montage, I wanted to show the other side of it that maybe not everyone would see. Of course, it is hard to view it in this way, but I think that anything involving nature is a beautiful thing, and when imagination is brought into it, can open up a door of things we as humans don’t even care to imagine, such as the magic of forests and trees, whatever that may be. That is why I included the gif of the sparkles. I tried to not include any pictures that could provide a negative connotation because the whole point of my montage was to see the beautiful side of it. I used pictures of foliage to show the foliage one might see in the Muck, and showed clouds to show the depth of the Muck and what it might have to offer.

Walking Wishes By Dovie Lepore-Currin

The women laugh, covering one's mouth// And as the hand comes away// A wish is spoken// Washes up on the shore,// And is brought together// As she puts her arm down// Interlocked with the wish striding next to her.

The ships sail in// As the wishes pile onto the shore, // The ship continues // As the sun sets and rises// The men sit and wait.

I actually love this revised version. I did not like how my previous version was rather long, not conveying the statement in the beginning of the book that resonated with me, but was quite short in terms of word count. I think that shorter statements that hold more meaning are more valuable to us as consumers of literature than longer statements with no substance. Yes, it is impressive that an author can elaborate on a topic, but sometimes it gets tedious. I think that a lot of what was in my poem was not relevant and did not make sense. There were a few lines that stuck to me, and those were the ones that I was going to keep. I think that the drastic difference in how Zora describes men and women is quite prevalent in those two statements in Chapter 1. The image of a woman was so drastically different from that of a man in the sense that women represented change and chase whilst men are stationary with no chance at anything more. I think that it absolutely represents the men in TEWWG, their worlds being very small and them not doing anything with themselves and sticking to the usual routines for as long as they live, while Janie goes out and does bigger and better things with her life, constantly evolving and becoming a better person and pertaining to what she wants, not what others want. The ship represents how the characters control themselves. The women control the ship, being their lives, while the men let the ship control them.