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?