St. Croix Falls Overview

Today was our first day of adventure back in Minnesota. We hiked around the St. Croix Falls area, and while I do not know the elevation, I do know that it is much, much, much lower than that of my previous hikes. 

As I Walk This Path Of Brown is a Go Vat, a Cambodian style of poetry. The traditional Go Vat is an eight syllable per line couplet, followed by an eight syllable line that ends with a repeating word. I have chosen to write a contemporary Go Vat, which allows for looser syllable counts and internal rhymes. 

The River is a type of Spanish poetry called a glosa. This form elaborates upon the first couplet, called a cabeza, by repeating the first line of the couplet with the first line of the first stanza (and second line as second line, respectively). While the syllable count does not matter, I have chosen a descending syllable count, where the first line of a stanza is 10 syllables, the second is nine, the third is eight and the fourth line is seven syllables. This poem is inspired by the St. Croix river, which currently several feet higher than usual.

The Road Taken is a joke poem crafted by my father and I while we forged several trails across the cliffs of the St. Croix River. Finally, reaching the real path, we chose to take it, as we were tired by having trees, brambles and large rocks in our way. The poem is an altered version of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, and uses the first and last stanzas of Frost's poem.