Past Poetry Posts
Spring 08 Poetry Posts
Someday I'll Need To Find My Voice
Bold and outgoing at the first four periods
Talkative and jumpy at lunch
Still cheerful at fifth period,
When sixth period hits, I'm not myself,
Some part of me is missing...
My voice.
My voice is held captive by the whole class,
The students or the teachers didn't take it,
I gave it to them.
I am taller than many of them,
However, I am small,
I'm small in personality, small in experience,
Small in knowledge.
I'm like a snail,
Even though I try to move and retrieve my voice,
I seem to get nowhere.
All I see when I look up are the students’ fuchsia sneakers
Or their white Nike socks.
When the bell rings and I leave the land
Where everybody there has my voice,
My voice finds its way back to me.
I know someday I will need to find my voice
In my 6th grade math class.
-Jenny Koh, age 11
Lane County, Oregon
PARTNER POEM for Someday I'll Need To Find My Voice
The Little Mute Boy
The little mute boy was looking for his voice.
(The kind of the crickets had it).
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
I do not want it for speaking with:
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger.
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
(The captive voice, far away,
put on a cricket's clothes).
-Federico Lorca, translated by W.S. Merwin, Spain
ASK the POEM for Someday I'll Need To Find My Voice & The Little Mute Boy
1. Poem, what kind of journey do you take me on?
2. How do you surprise me?
3. What feelings are you sharing with me?
4. What adventures does your voice go on without you?
5. What noise can you make to call your voice back?
Winter 08 Poetry Posts
The First Sky Is Inside You
(from a poem by Li-Young Lee)
The first sky is inside you,
A shadow on a butterfly's cheek,
A story made of grapes,
A kiss flecked with chocolate,
Laughing the song of a thousand moons,
Dancing the love of a thousand suns,
Outside is the inside,
Inside is out,
Color and light blend
To create miraculous illusions
Where people have skin of blue quartz,
Topaz eyes,
And the ocean is fire.
The first sky is inside you,
Bigger than life,
Smaller than the cost of forgiveness.
The first sky is love,
Kept in a walnut
Or enclosing the universe,
Equal only to the smile
A mother gives
As she watches her child at play.
The first sky
And the last sky blend
Into one.
--Kayla Cassidy, age 12
Lane County, Oregon
Partner Poem
One Heart
Look at the birds. Even flying
is born
out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open
at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.
--Li-Young Lee
Chicago, Illinois
Ask the Poems
1. Poem, what do you invite me to wonder about?
2. How are your words like music?
3. How do you give me the feeling of something magical?
4. What else is inside you?
5. What can you let out?
Fall 07 Poetry Posts
Dear Young Owl
Dear young owl, heed my word,
If you're to live, this must be heard.
Fly high, fly low, like black shadow,
The mice will never know.
Mouse, vole, mole in hole,
Shrew and lizard bold,
Beware the owl, we don't howl,
Your head in our beak's hold.
If in barn your family lives,
Beware black rafter swiftly gives.
And if in tree your family dwells,
Watch for raccoon--danger swells.
Swoop down from the moonlit sky,
The mice will never know how they die.
Crush the head, break the neck,
To me that mouse is just a speck.
Someday soon you'll leave the nest,
And put your skills to the test.
So spread your wings and find a home,
'Cause soon, young owl, you're on your own.
--Rachael Edwards, age 11
PARTNER POEM
White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field
Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings--
five feet apart--and the grabbing
thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow--
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows--
so I thought:
maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us--
as soft as feathers--
that we are instantly weary
of looking and looking and shut our eyes,
not without amazement
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow--
that is nothing but light--scalding, aortal light--
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
--Mary Oliver
ASK the POEMS
1. Poem, how do you create a sense of mystery?
2. What do you want me to feel?
3. How do you use details to make the owl come alive?
4. Owls, are you masks Death wears? Poem, what is it about you that causes me to think that?
5. What is it like to strike and fly away?
Spring 07 Poetry Posts
Romance Boulevard
Green is the rippling river,
Green and gray. Green winds.
The bark is silent and somber.
Yellow birds fly to my forever.
This is my street of centuries,
I stand to greet that barrage,
green animals, blue flowers
make my beautiful pallet.
Green is the rippling rover,
Like a banjo, the moon sings,
A song of paradise and eternity
I sway gently to the pulse.
Green is the rippling river.
Big eyes search wild skies
upon a day of soul release
questioning the universe no more.
The hues of frost like ghosts
change the dark to light,
all stands still, spirits fly low,
rise above yourself.
When do we come? Why do we stay?
I cease to tell time,
green animals, blue flowers,
my soloist march in armor.
--Chelsea Ingram, Age 14
Lane County, Oregon
from Romance Sonambulo
Green, how much I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship upon the sea
and the horse in the mountain.
With the shadow on her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, hair of green,
and eyes of cold silver.
Green, how much I want you green.
Beneath the gypsy moon,
all things look at her
but she cannot see them.
Green, how much I want you green.
Great stars of white frost
come with the fish of darkness
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs the wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the mountain, a filching cat,
bristles its bitter aloes.
But who will come? And from where?
She lingers on her balcony,
green flesh, hair of green,
dreaming of the bitter sea.
--Federico Garcia Lorca
Spain
Translated by Stephen Spender
Questions for "Romance Boulevard" and "Romance Sonambulo"
1. Poem, why do you use the color green?
2. What is it you are longing for?
3. You ask us questions--what do you want us to think about?
4. You take us on a journey into your magical world. How do you do this?
For Fall 05 Poetry Posts, poet, Deborah Wells chose
Shell by Chelsea Ingram, Lane County middle school poet
Like a wind in the willows,
The audience at an opera,
Waves, smells, memories waft in and out
I hide under a blanket
And move my arms in the tangible dark
A cat’s chin, soft and rough
His tongue like sand
A canyon, a tunnel, a shell
To go with it, Deborah chose this:
Out of Hiding by Li-Young Lee
Someone said my name in the garden,
While I grew smaller
In the spreading shadow of the peonies,
Grew larger by my absence to another,
Grew older among the ants, ancient
Under the opening heads of the flowers,
New to myself, and stranger.
When I heard my name again, it sounded far,
Like the name of the child next door,
Or a favorite cousin visiting for the summer,
While the quiet seemed my true name,
A near and inaudible singing
Born of hidden ground.
Quiet to quiet, I called back.
And the birds declared my whereabouts all morning.
Five questions to ask both poems:
1. Where are you?
2. What makes you so mysterious?
3. What are you feeling?
4. Do you like to be alone?
5. What will you do next?
For the Winter 05 Poetry Post:
When by Nathan Hanson, age 13, Lane County, Oregon
When being imperfect is illegal,
You want to walk around unseen,
When people call you inhuman,
And you start compiling ways to die,
You feel like a superpower in the night,
The leader of your own semiprecious world,
An unsung world,
Unlike any other,
Floating immobile in the vast emptiness of
space.
For the companion poem Deborah Narin-Wells chose:
excerpt from Walking Around by Pablo Neruda, Chile, written between 1931-1935
I happen to be tired of being a man.
I happen to enter tailorshops and moviehouses
withered, impenetrable, like a felt swan
navigating in a water of sources and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me wail.
I want only a respite of stones or wool.
I want only not to see establishments or gardens,
or merchandise or eyeglasses or elevators.
........
I happen to be tired of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
I happen to be tired of being a man.
I walk around with calm, with eyes, with shoes,
with fury, with forgetfulness,
I pass, I cross by offices and orthopedic shoestores,
and courtyards where clothes are hanging from a wire:
underdrawers, towels and shirts that weep
slow, dirty tears.
Questions to ask the poems:
1. Where are you?
2. What kind of world do you create?
3. What kinds of feelings do you express?
4. Why are your words so sad?
5. Why are your words so strange?
6. How do you want us to feel when we read you?
Spring 06 Poetry Posts
I remember by Madisyn Schultz, Age 12 Lane County, Oregon
I remember scorching summer days sitting in cold water
full of bugs.
I remember my aunt's cat hiding under her bed
every time I came over, no matter how well she knew me.
I remember my grandpa's wheelchair and the way
my dad had to help him into the car, and his pants
kept falling down and I laughed.
I remember climbing that craggy old tree at his
funeral.
I remember thinking "approximate" meant exactly.
I remember naming all the cows at a farm
I never went back to.
I remember my teacher's goats and the hole
in her yard where her nephew tried to dig
to China.
I remember feeding Beamer, the horse, who
would eat anything.
I remember when my cousin's hamster ran
away and they never found him.
I remember going away on vacation and coming
back to find my guppies dead.
I remember wondering why my mom didn't
like mice.
I remember the two kamikaze goldfish my parents
found on the floor.
I remember thinking the blood from my brother's
head wound was juice.
I remember splashing puddles and how
I dressed up my Beanie Baby on Halloween.
I remember how my cousin, Fanny, would
chew her tongue if she didn't have any gum.
I remember trying to talk to my dog when
she was home and I was at school.
My Father's Song by Simon Ortiz
Wanting to say things,
I miss my father tonight.
His voice, the slight catch,
the depth from his thin chest,
the tremble of emotion
in something he has just said
to his son, his song.
We planted corn one spring at Acu-
we planted several times
but this one particular time
I remember the soft damp sand
in my hand.
My father had stopped at one point
to show me an overturned furrow;
the plowshare had unearthed
the burrow nest of a mouse
in the soft moist sand.
Very gently, he scooped tiny pink animals
into the palm of his hand
and told me to touch them.
We took them to the edge
of the field and put them in the shade
of a sand-moist clod.
I remember the very softness
of cool and warm sand and tiny alive mice
and my father saying things.
Questions for I Remember (Madisyn Shultz) and My Father's Song (Simon Ortiz):
1. Where are you?
2. What are you sharing with me?
3. Are your memories happy or sad or both?
4. What senses do you use to describe your memories?
5. What do you invite me to wonder about?
6. Why do you use repetition?
Fall 06 Poetry Posts
Right Outside My Window by Sydney Wensel, age 12
The leaves melody was a light rustle,
the wind caressing the leaves just as a
mother leads her children,
the river flows next to the tree with the
leaves that rustle
Right outside my window.
Right outside my window
lies a poem itself--life
with sorrowful parts
and happy parts.
Right outside my window.
The sun retires, right outside my window.
People outside talked and laughed
right outside my window.
Glass, light and thin, clear and intricate
My window.
In the Room of a Thousand Miles by Billy Collins, Poet Laureate 2001-3
I like writing about where I am,
where I happen to be sitting,
the humidity or the clouds,
the scene outside my window--
a pink tree in bloom,
a neighbor walking his small, nervous dog.
My wife hands these poems back to me
with a sigh.
She thinks I ought to be opening up
my aperture to let in
the wild rhododendrons of Ireland,
the sun-blanched stadiums of Rome,
that waterclock in Bruges--
the world beyond my inkwell.
I tell her I will try again
and travel back to my desk
where the chair is turned to the window.
I think about the furniture of history.
I consider the globe, the lights of its cities,
I visualize a lion rampant on an iron shield,
a quiet battlefield, a granite monument.
And then--just between you and me--
I take a swallow of cold tea
and in the manner of the ancient Chinese
pick up my thin pen
and write down that bird I hear outside,
the one that sings,
pauses,
then sings again.
Questions to ask both poems:
Where are you?
What are you feeling?
What are you saying about things close to you?
How are your words like music?
What do you invite me to think about?
Winter 06 Poetry Posts
Riddle by Emily Mangan, age 13 Lane County
From the heat of the earth it rises,
And from dampened woods it falls.
It is not one color and not one size,
Comes from the ground, yet always flies.
It chokes and kills, but it clears the mind,
Always disappearing, yet easy to find.
Answer: Smoke
Riddle by Daniel Hoffman
If all but one deny me, I am not.
The Greeks had gods for everything but me.
Since then
How could I live on earth, in heaven? Yet see
If you can find me in the hearts of men.
Answer: Peace
Questions for the poems
1.Poem, what do you want me to think about?
2.How do you tell me what you are without using the word?
3.What senses do you appeal to?
4.How do you create pictures (images) in my mind?
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