Title: Helios’ Granddaughter

Creator: Hannah Teves

Category: Death

Creator Commentary:

This poem is not about death so much as it is about the fear of death and the uncertainty that humans carry about death. We don’t often think about death, but during the October fires we were all faced with death at varying levels of intensity, and the possible death and destruction was a very violent one. I wrote this poem in class while the fires were happening, and I found that people were reacting in very strange ways to the fire. We weren’t in any danger of dying, of course, but natural disasters are very oddly humbling, and it can make people feel smaller and less in control of their own lives. People watched the sky from inside or ran around covering their mouths, and though a lot of people joked or laughed about it there was an undercurrent of nervousness and uncertainty in everyone. I think the fire made us lose the illusion of control that we had, and we were all in a state of shock. We often forget that nature has the power to destroy us, and I tried to play with that in the poem, describing the godliness and ferocity of nature’s power and how we are always surprised at the “nerve” of imminent death in a world that is so separated from death and destruction.

Submission:

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Creator Bio:

Hannah Teves is an English Literature major and talented hugger from San Diego, CA. Their dream is to teach teenagers how to write and get paid doing it. You may recognize them as the
pink-haired individual who lives in the campus Starbucks, snuggled in between sofa cushions and drinking venti iced coffees.