{"id":410,"date":"2025-11-16T21:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=410"},"modified":"2025-11-18T00:28:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T00:28:19","slug":"imagination-is-all-i-have-when-history-gives-me-nothing","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/poetry\/imagination-is-all-i-have-when-history-gives-me-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagination is All I Have When History Gives Me Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Carrigan<\/span><\/p>\n

\u0336 Dani Putney<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know who was the first person<\/span><\/p>\n

in my family to arrive in America. <\/span><\/p>\n

Odds are they came from Ireland in the<\/span><\/p>\n

19th century, decked out in tweed,<\/span><\/p>\n

Irish lilt on their tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of them made it to rural Michigan<\/span><\/p>\n

and renamed a logging camp into <\/span><\/p>\n

the town my father would come of age in. <\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder what songs came to mind<\/span><\/p>\n

when he compared the woods to Eden,<\/span><\/p>\n

if there was a leaf or piece of bark<\/span><\/p>\n

that felt just right in his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Would he walk with his wife and children <\/span><\/p>\n

through the trees, or would he keep<\/span><\/p>\n

the happenings of nature to himself?<\/span><\/p>\n

My dad said he was working on a family tree,<\/span><\/p>\n

but I imagine he\u2019s forgotten it under <\/span><\/p>\n

a Fox News report or a case of Coors Light.<\/span><\/p>\n

The binder with all our family member\u2019s names<\/span><\/p>\n

is probably in his basement somewhere next to<\/span><\/p>\n

the old train set and the Christmas decorations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until I work up the nerve to go visit him,<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to think about who<\/span><\/p>\n

that daring Carrigan was<\/span><\/p>\n

to cobble up the coins needed to <\/span><\/p>\n

come in search of opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps I\u2019ll find some woods to walk around<\/span><\/p>\n

in until then, and hope that something<\/span><\/p>\n

about the feel of bark in my hand<\/span><\/p>\n

ties me to something greater.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nAlex Carrigan \u0336 Dani Putney I don\u2019t know who was the first person in my family to arrive in America.…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “Imagination is All I Have When History Gives Me Nothing”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"parent":322,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-410","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/410\/revisions\/411"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}