Rapture

Adrian M. Pollard

I am pleased to nominate Adrian Pollard’s “Rapture” for your consideration in the Midwestern High School Writing competition. For over the past decade the fiction of Orson Scott Card has consistently been prominent among my students’ favorite pleasure reading, and in my creative writing assignments I have read quite a few stories which seek to channel Card’s work (I should also state that the assignment did not invoke or demand Card’s fiction; he chose to respond to it of his volition). Adrian’s piece is certainly the most creative, energetic, and successful such effort which I have received. I admire its creative reach and experimental form, its irrepressible and exuberant energy (especially in Act II), and creative use of repetition. But to my mind, the most outstanding feature lies in its demonstration of Adrian’s interdisciplinary imagination. Adrian’s willing and energetic attempt to integrate the arts and sciences while exploring both the familiar and the ineffably mysterious strikes me as a fit emblem of the postmodern condition that envelops our lives and imaginations.

To be answered by the student

My piece, "Rapture", is a dark and mysterious short story/poem about creation that utilizes a unique style of repetition and imagery to create a foreboding tale.