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answer this for the book the awful rowing towards god by ann sexton on pages 25-33
Choose one of the following prompts to answer in destast
Explain why a prediction ναυ made eartier in the story tumed out to be comect or incorrect
What are some of the challeriging vocabulary words in this story? How did you ligure out the meaning of the words in context of the story
Imagine that you are one al the main characters in your book Describe one event you trave experienced. Include sensory detalk: What can you see leel hear, taste, and smell
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I choose the third prompt. I am the confessional speaker — a woman who keeps drifting between anger, longing, and a fierce, childish faith — and I will describe one event I experienced.
I remember the night I stole out to the small boat by myself. The air was damp and heavy; when I pushed the bow off the reeds the wood squealed and smelled faintly of algae and old varnish. Above me the moon hung like a dull coin, half-masked by clouds that moved too slowly. The first strokes were clumsy; my arms remembered one by one, the oars thudding through water that smelled like iron and river mud. Each dip sent a small cold shock up my wrists. My breath came in short, hot bursts that fogged for a second before the lake swallowed the mist.
Around me the dark had texture: frogs tinkled in the cattails, a distant dog barked once and stopped, insects stitched the air with a steady, high thread. Every sound seemed too loud and too sharp, as if the world had turned up the volume so I could hear each tiny decision I’d made. I tasted copper on my tongue — fear or the memory of a previous ache — and a stale sweetness of coffee from earlier that afternoon. My shirt clung damply to my back. I felt the oar handles under my palms, callused lines catching on them, and the steady ache in my shoulders that mixed exhaustion with a strange, clean clarity.
As the boat moved, images came: hands I’d wanted to hold; doors I’d slammed; nights when laughter felt like a borrowed thing. There was a strange squeeze in my chest, equal parts grief and relief, as if the motion of rowing could wear away the edges of all my old selves. For a moment, the water was perfectly still and the moon lay flat on the surface like a promise I couldn’t quite reach. I reached out and the ripples swallowed the light. It felt like a small, private ritual — an offering to something vast and indifferent, something I half-called God and half-accused of not listening.
When I turned the boat back toward shore the world reassembled itself — smells sharpened, the reeds leaned in, and the dock creaked under my feet. My clothes smelled faintly of the lake, my hands still tasted of metal, and my legs hummed with the memory of work. Inside me something had shifted: not solved, not healed, but moved. I carried that hush with me for days, as if the boat had taken some loose piece of me out into the night and set it to float, while I walked home with the rest.
I remember the night I stole out to the small boat by myself. The air was damp and heavy; when I pushed the bow off the reeds the wood squealed and smelled faintly of algae and old varnish. Above me the moon hung like a dull coin, half-masked by clouds that moved too slowly. The first strokes were clumsy; my arms remembered one by one, the oars thudding through water that smelled like iron and river mud. Each dip sent a small cold shock up my wrists. My breath came in short, hot bursts that fogged for a second before the lake swallowed the mist.
Around me the dark had texture: frogs tinkled in the cattails, a distant dog barked once and stopped, insects stitched the air with a steady, high thread. Every sound seemed too loud and too sharp, as if the world had turned up the volume so I could hear each tiny decision I’d made. I tasted copper on my tongue — fear or the memory of a previous ache — and a stale sweetness of coffee from earlier that afternoon. My shirt clung damply to my back. I felt the oar handles under my palms, callused lines catching on them, and the steady ache in my shoulders that mixed exhaustion with a strange, clean clarity.
As the boat moved, images came: hands I’d wanted to hold; doors I’d slammed; nights when laughter felt like a borrowed thing. There was a strange squeeze in my chest, equal parts grief and relief, as if the motion of rowing could wear away the edges of all my old selves. For a moment, the water was perfectly still and the moon lay flat on the surface like a promise I couldn’t quite reach. I reached out and the ripples swallowed the light. It felt like a small, private ritual — an offering to something vast and indifferent, something I half-called God and half-accused of not listening.
When I turned the boat back toward shore the world reassembled itself — smells sharpened, the reeds leaned in, and the dock creaked under my feet. My clothes smelled faintly of the lake, my hands still tasted of metal, and my legs hummed with the memory of work. Inside me something had shifted: not solved, not healed, but moved. I carried that hush with me for days, as if the boat had taken some loose piece of me out into the night and set it to float, while I walked home with the rest.
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