Writing
Personals Poem
I’ve never liked roses; they are just a clichéd, all-purpose backup flower with no personality
All vegetables taste better in vinegar
In 2008 my Nana died on my birthday
I like to be anywhere except where I am at that moment
Dump me off at any country in the world and I’ll be satisfied
I just want to explore
When I was a baby my left eye started turning brown but then it changed its mind and stopped
Now my eyes are bluish green, while my right eye still has a brown splotch
Why do people eat liver and onions? Because in the 1500s there was a little ice age in Eastern Asia
I still believe that my letter to Hogwarts got lost in the mail
When I have a chance to quench my thirst I choose not to, but right now I’m wishing I had
Goldfish make me shudder
4020 Pacific Avenue I’ll never see again. If you stow away in my suit case, I’ll take you there
I can’t remember what groceries we need, but I can remember pi to 80 digits
–Nina Howard, 8th grade, Moultrie Middle
Write a Poem poem
Write a poem that clicks in your brain
Like a train’s wheels on a track
Let it be braided into bracelets
That you buy
At touristy shops
And let it be braided
Into hair
Write a poem that paints itself
On walls
That people will sign their names on
Write a poem that likes to drink
Mott’s apple juice
On Thursdays
Let it drink all its drinks
With curly straws
And write a poem that likes to eat trail mix
With purple cranberries
And
Walnuts
Write a poem that holds the door for strangers
And waves at people passing by
Especially at grandmas, and nuns
And your old catholic school teacher Sister Adelheid
And if it sees Maria Von Trapp, let it wave at her too
Let it grow peonies in its garden
And let it weed it
Every
Other
Day
Write a poem that steals ideas
From copyrighted things
If it wants to
And let it steal words said by
Winston Churchill
And lima beans
Let your poem
Boycott
Styrofoam lunch trays
It doesn’t have to start a revolution
But at least let it take a stand
Write a poem that smells like
Cinnamon raisin bread
Fresh out of the oven
When all
The other poems
Smell like plastic
Write a poem that buys
Spatulas
From the second floor of department stores
So that it can flip pancakes
For its daughter
Grace
And if your poems a girl
Have it marry someone with the last name Kelly
So its daughter’s name
Can be Grace Kelly
That might make her
Popular in school
Write a poem that doesn’t care
If the other poems laugh when it quotes Fat Albert
“He who throws mud only looses
Ground”
Write a poem
That chops onions to hide its crying
Write a poem
That just likes to
Write
Whatever it wants
Or just
Sits
And
Listens
–Nina Howard, 8th grade, Moultrie Middle
Repeating Poem, from the Gibbes Museum
Mountains 30,002 miles away
Mountains 30,002 miles away and cypress trees with pale bark
A girl wading in the marsh her blonde pig-tails inches above her suntanned neck
A squirming minnow in her palm its scales reflecting in the noon-day sun
Ashley the wading girl explores the marsh, her rolled up blue jeans damp with the creek’s salted waters
Her cheerful voice echoes down the creek to her older brother Willy, chopping down wood in the nearby forest
A streak of mud on her T-shirt
–Liv Provosty, 6th grade, School of the Arts
I Remember Poem
I remember how my mom blared the music after dinner
I remember the bike trail my dad showed me
I remember eating Publix Banana Pudding for the first time right out of the carton
I remember the way riding on a boat feels, the wind whipping your hair back
I remember mozzarella, basil, and tomato salads
I remember ginger ale after school
I remember beach picnics with Cuban sandwiches and puffy Cheetos
I remember evening soccer games
I remember rides at Universal and screaming my head off
I remember ice cream sundaes in Nana’s kitchen
I remember putting ketchup on my green beans
I remember cute little bows in my thin hair
I remember sunsets on the water at the Old Bridge
–Liv Provosty, 6th grade, School of the Arts
Banana Poem
My color is yellow
The sun is my yellow friend
Please don’t eat me
I am shaped like a canoe
To open me you split my head off
In my final day I become rotten and old
Black spots appear on me as I get older
I am shaped like a gun
My banana wife died in childbirth
I have four banana kids
A monkey ate my best friend
Hopefully you are allergic to me
Please don’t eat me. I have a tough enough
Life already.
–Joey Heindel, 6th grade, Mt. Pleasant
Haiku:
The large green and yellow doors,
The statues of the country’s heroes,
Are overshadowed by the Wickalow Mountains .
— Maureen Malles, 10th grader, Orlando
A bud starts to form
Then slowly blooms to its full
Not knowing it’s been cut
— Victoria Coleman, 7th grader, Orlando
Untitled
Seven years ago, I saw you walking all alone
You were wearing that light blue paisley dress you wore last Thursday
It ends right above the knee and has short sleeves
You were walking down Bulbery Street
Looking at the ground
Staring at your shoes
Green slip-ons with a pink flower on the thong
I didn’t yet know your name
And I didn’t know if you knew mine
I was the guy wearing the purple baseball cap backwards
You did look back
But I’m sure positive you didn’t see me
I need to know your name
I want to know
What you do
Where you’re from
Everything about you
— Mariah Byrne, 8th grader, Orlando
Orange candies sliding around in someone’s mouth like a snake on ice
Black is like the smudges under football players eyes, smearing from the crystal droplets of rain pouring down from the deep purple sky
A flush of orange salmon darting, pushing themselves upstream, desperate to get to their birthplace
Grey like the outside of a house during one of the huge tornados on the Kansas plains
Yellow is like the sunrays, dancing like people giving warmth to everything they touch
–Mimi Eliscu, Winter Park, Summer 2008, written to an abstract painting at the Cornell Museum of Art, Rollins College
Fall is a ball with a biscuit on top
Fall is like vanilla with polka dots purple
Fall is like a monkey eating crunch chips chilling at the beach
Fall is like a basket of dead rabbits
Fall is like Shakespeare going to Wal-Mart and getting a Halloween costume
Fall is like a Freaky Friday
Fall is like scary stories with roses on the cover
–Me'chelle Smith, 4th grader, Memminger Elementary
Spring is in May,
Ending in late June
Sounding of the light whistle,
Of grasshoppers in the late, cool evening
Feeling of, of the feel,
Of making bacon
With no shirt on.
— Mary Scott Gilbert, 3rd grader, Mount Pleasant Academy
Flower Bulb Poems:
I am a bulb
A gilded
Peasant
Cradled in
Silken sheets
Of gold
Although I am
Really just
All
Squishy
Inside
I am the one that seems
Flawless
But really am just
Coated in makeup
I am the very
Fake
Person who looks tough
On the outside
But really is harmless
I look very
Confident
But I am burned and tortured
I am a bulb.
–Larissa Schiavo, 7th Grade, Mt. Pleasant
Soft yet hard
A brown light bulb
Cool and tan.
Planted in the ground
It develops,
It grows
A little green inchworm
Inching its way to the sky.
It surfaces its subterranean dwelling
Taking in its first glimpse of sunolight,
Like a baby’s first breath.
As it climbs up and branches out,
It’s a green octopus
Pulling down the sky as it towers.
Taking the air within itself
Growing ever green
Ever mutating,
To something beautiful
–Matthew Yungman, 10th grade, Mt. Pleasant
Written on Mary Whyte's Hull, at the Gibbes Museum
This is Jim. He’s currently living in Arizona. It’s a Tuesday and he’s going to have to do his wife’s laundry because she’s sick with the flu. Right now he hears the groaning of his wife. Loud and clear. Jim knows he can’t do anything to help her. The medicine has not started working and Jim gave the medicine to her a half hour ago. He smells something. It smells like smoke. Well, maybe not. It smells like rain. You know the smell you smell when it’s about to rain. Jim is in a barn that has no animals but has a boat hanging from the ceiling. Jim goes outside to see if it’s raining. It’s sprinkling. Not raining yet, but Jim can feel that it’s about to rain hard. He runs inside and shuts the shutters on the windows. Then he sees his wife is up.
"What are you doing up?“ he asks sternly. "Aren’t you sick”?
"I’m getting a cup of coffee", she says.
"I didn’t make coffee this morning", chuckles Jim.
"Oh.“ says his wife.
"I’ll makes some, though.”
"Wait a minute. Did you forget the laundry on the line?“
"Uh, oh.” he says.
"It’s okay, we’ll get it tomorrow.“
"Really it’s okay? You don’t like me leaving the that laundry wet…”
–Mary Reagan Keeter, 5th grade, Belle Hall
A “Used to Be…But Now…” Poem
I used to be pink and red when I first came out, but now I am calm and quiet
I used to be messy and unclean, but now I am clean and sanitized
I used to cry a lot but now I have someone to rock me to sleep
I used to put on other people’s shoes and clothes but now I have someone to guide me in the right direction
I used to put socks on my hands and wear them as gloves and pretend I was an usher at church, but now I have someone to take me
I used to get my clothes mixed up but now my mother is here to find the right clothes for me
I used to do all of those things but now I am older…
— Treyshawn Simmons, 7th grader, Charleston
The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter - The Next Step
(a continuation of Ezra Pound’s translation of Rihaku’s poem — ed.)
At seventeen I waited,
I waited for you to return,
you have been gone for too long,
my sorrow is overwhelming.
At eighteen you returned,
I was confused to see you,
I didn’t know how to react,
my world had been always quiet,
like sleeping mice.
You told me of your ventures,
to America,
I asked why you had departed,
you didn’t answer.
I told you I was going to come look for you,
but didn’t know where to start.
I missed you.
and, I’m happy to have you back,
please don’t leave me again,
for my heart will be shattered.
— Megan Wray, 9th Grader, Orlando
When my mother still dressed me in smocked dresses and lacey socks,
I played in the sandbox and got dirt inside my silver-buckled shoes.
You lived in the red-brick house on Joy Avenue, the street behind my house,
and always thought of reasons to climb over the chain-link fence and into my yard.
You stole the ribbons in my hair and tied them to the limbs of persimmon trees.
At thirteen you held my hand in the lunch line and took me to get ice cream.
We were cast as the lead roles in the school play. You hated acting,
but only Romeo could kiss me. You made some sacrifices for me and learned every line.
At fourteen you decided we should be more than friends. You brought me daises and a
plastic ring from the vending machine at Piggly Wiggly. It turned my finger green, but
I wore it anyway. You took me fishing and taught me how to get my hands dirty.
On Valentine’s Day you wanted me to wear a red dress and asked me to pull my hair
back in ribbons. At nine o’clock I was still standing by the door. The phone rang.
They told me that you were vermillion ash in the front seat of a Mustang and that two
dozen charred roses were scattered across the highway.
–Katherine Cox, 11th grader, Charleston County School of the Arts
Muse Poems:
Priscilla
With a sledgehammer to my head
She wakes me up in the middle of the night
One stroke of brilliance is an adrenaline rush to her
Lord knows she won’t let me go back to sleep unless
I scribble it down, tapping her big boots impatiently on my floor
I don’t think she ever sleeps
Sleeping, she says, is just a waste of time
She thinks she’s being original, but I know Da Vinci said that first
Besides, there are times when she sleeps for days, in a little pink lump
Later complaining of a hangover
I asked her if she knew who Apollo was
She said he was a pimp of the universe with all of his supposed muses
She didn’t like him.
She drew him getting sprayed with a fire extinguisher.
–Meagan Raney, Academic Magnet High School (inspired by Robert Long’s “The Muse and I" poems)