Creative Writing: Journal From a Poem

Read the poem Out Back.
2. Think about the meaning you can derive from it, especially related to your life or the present.
3. While a journal response format is informal, the writing should be reflective, proofread and focused.
4. Click on the phrase Out Back Journal J1.1 and paste your work in the space there.
Your journals after this one will follow the Reader Response Journal Guide, but for this initial sample, I want to see how you think, reason and interpret meaning in this poem. So for this first journal, use the prompt ideas to guide you.
Post in Assignments by pasting your writing in the Message Box.
Read the poem and prompt. Write your reaction and post in Assignments.
POEM
Out Back
behind the dying diner he leans
out of the long-travelled wind
lights his last cigarette
tries not to wonder
where the freight trains go
or how it feels to count so many stars
from the red roof of swaying boxcars
now he curses the road that brings business
and takes away the young women
tries not to wonder how the
hawks feel when they track along
the blistered smudge of highway
like the dusty diner he is
a maybe stop between accidental roadkills
clouds down from montana lie about rain
his grimy apron riffles in the dusk breeze
now he is a bone mast on a sand ship
now the screen door hinges screech
the festering fat cook accuses
when you gonna bus table nine
the apron falls . . . never says the new fugitive
Doug Thiele