Past Poetry Posts
Winter 09 Poetry Posts
Finding Darkness for Hannah Burge
I would gather darkness from
a black sharpie
under my bed
a cave
I would gather darkness from
my mouth
behind a star
solar eclipse
I would put it in a blow-up beach ball.
The beach ball is green and blue with pictures of
animals.
I would put a green plastic piece in the hole.
I would give the darkness to Hannah Burge
because she has been watching her little sister.
I would find Hannah at her house, in her room,
watching her little sister.
When I give it to her she says what is it? A beach
ball?
By Sierra Lambert, Grade 4, Oregon
PARTNER POEM
If each day falls
If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.
We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.
--Pablo Neruda, tr. William O'Daly
Ask the Poems for Finding Darkness and If each day falls...
1.) How does darkness help you?
2.) Is there anything darkness shows you that can’t be seen in the light?
3.) Do light and darkness get along with each other?
4.) Does light make darkness hide? Do you think it’s a game they play?
5.) What does fallen light look like?
YOUR TURN, what poem or story will you write?
Fall 09 Poetry Posts
Silently gliding across the sea,
sea is all that's surrounding me,
on it I feel peaceful and free,
on the mysterious graceful sea.
I felt like a lock without a key
I felt like a garden without the trees
I felt like white flowers without the bees
but then I discovered the great blue sea
and then I just knew that it was the key
to the used-to-be keyless lock in me.
Emma Shortt, Age 10
Oregon
PARTNER POEM
The Place I Want to Get Back To
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground, like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.
Mary Oliver
Maine
ASK THE POEMS, Untitled & The Place I Want to Get Back To
1. When you discovered your gift, how did it change you? How would your life be different if this hadn't happened?
2. How do you hold onto or let go of your gift? Do you have a secret place to hide things away, or can you only hold onto little bits and pieces?
3. What kind of relationship do you have with nature? Is nature like a sibling to you, who you bicker with but love, or is nature more like a distant aunt who sends you the best presents?
4. Who is still locked out? Can you invite your friends and family? How would you invite them?
5. What things can you see that were invisible before? What about the other senses, what can you smell, taste, feel, or hear that you couldn’t before?
YOUR TURN, what poem or story will you write?
Spring 09 Poetry Posts
Danger
Danger is the lightning in my heart,
The dying weapon used on us.
You danger are the bullet landing and
the unbreakable tears.
Or the black hole swallowing my soul.
You are the family fights or the homework
problems.
And even the huge fire burning down
all existing life on earth.
Danger you're unbearable for me.
--Paloma Deinum-Buck, Age 9, Lane County, Oregon
PARTNER POEM
from Negotiations with a Volcano
We will call you "Agua" like the rivers and cool jugs.
We will persuade the clouds to nestle around your neck
so you may sleep late.
We would be happy if you slept forever.
We will tend the slopes we plant, singing the songs
our grandfathers taught us before we inherited their fear.
We will try not to argue among ourselves.
Please think of us as we are, tiny, with skins that burn easily.
Please notice how we have watered the shrubs around our houses
and transplanted the peppers into neat tin cans.
Forgive any anger we feel toward the earth,
when the rains do not come, or they come too much,
and swallow our corn.
It is not easy to be this small and live in your shadow.
--Naomi Shihab Nye, San Antonio, Texas
ASK THE POEMS
1. What is the most frightening thing that could happen to a poem?
2. How would you talk to the thing you feared most? What language would you use?
3. Would you rather know what danger you will be in the midst of someday or would you prefer to let danger sneak up and surprise you? Why?
4. How might you be rescued by clouds? In what way could they help or hinder you?
5. If you could make scary things disappear just be pretending they didn't exist how would you remember them? Would you feel proud of yourself or sorry that you had erased such a powerful thing? Why?
Winter 08 Poetry Posts
DARK NIGHT
Oh dark, dark night, what are your secrets?
Oh dark, dark night, why are you there?
Are you there to make everyone's despair just suddenly
leave?
Are you there to make one happy?
Or are you just there to make one wonder,
and have courage?
Oh dark, dark night, why are you there?
Oh dark, dark night.
--Dawson Rutledge, Age 9, Lane County, Oregon
PARTNER POEM
THE SHADOW INSIDE ME
Night has driven the shadow
into my own body. It's an inward
robe that stretches its arms
and legs into my limbs, whispers
like silk along my spine,
turns darker and darker until it
finally comes off in me as the color
of sleep, behind whose eyelids
two black flames are flickering.
--Tommy Olofsson, Sweden (translated by Jean Pearson)
ASK THE POEM
(Imagine what the poem might say/write if you asked…)
1. What do poems do in the dark while humans are sleeping?
2. When has the darkness of night helped you? How might it help you in the future?
3. If you could invite night-time and day-time over to your house to play, what games would they choose? Who do you think would win?
4. What other creatures (real or imaginary) might become stronger or more comfortable at night? How would they show this?
5. Why do you think night exists and what would happen inside of you if it suddenly stopped?
Fall 08 Poetry Posts THE JUNKYARD OF FORGOTTEN TREASURES
In the junkyard of forgotten treasures
a bird's nest lay calmly, waiting
waiting for a bird to rest on its twigs.
A picture of two men in berets
sits lonely, worn by rain.
Church bells lay hopelessly,
silently pleading to be rung.
A cardboard box
that's never been used
lays underneath something broken.
Smoke billows from the fire,
a fire that never burns out.
A delivery truck
comes every day
and throws in more wasted treasure
from an old photo of cliff divers
to a diamond ring,
from a book that's never been read,
to an old bottle
that was thrown away,
its juice still inside.
-Ashley Babcock
Age 11, Lane County, Oregon
PARTNER POEM
MRS. LYONS
She could untie the dawn, Mrs. Lyons,
and out would come a bird born
in a cardboard box or an orange
that unpeels itself. She kept in her red
breast pocket a postcard of cliff
divers in Hawaii and a white nest
made of her handkerchief.
Her voice was as old as churchbells,
her hair billowing chimney smoke,
her heart and veins little girls
jumping rope. When she looked
at you, you'd see rain
penetrating the earth with its
soft voice. Her hands were two
old men talking excitedly in French,
berets riding the world of ideas.
This moment is the broken thing,
Mrs. Lyons.
Please come back and teach me again
what you once did in 6th grade.
-Rebecca Childers
Lane County, Oregon
ASK THE POEM
1. What is the most valuable treasure a poem can own?
2. Is it possible for something you never see or touch to be the thing you treasure most? How? Why?
3. Can you imagine a new scene including birds, berets and churchbells?
4. If you could unpeel yourself like an orange or be opened like a book (that's never been read) which would you choose? What would we find inside?
5. How does rain change you? Do you fade, shine, or react in your own unique way?
Spring 08 Poetry Posts
I Knew a Cloud
I knew a cloud when I walked in the cold, wet mist of fog.
It swirled around me laughing.
I watched for a moment, thinking
Should I scream and run inside?
Should I stay and play with it?
Should I stand here and watch?
What should I do?
The snow-white cloud touches its cold mist against my cheek.
It turns it as red as a blossoming cherry.
Soon the cloud swirls high into the sky
and blows itself away with the others.
I watch for a while and then turn and run to catch up with my brother
and walk the rest of the way to school.
I always look for the cloud now and want to know its name.
-Kate Henley, age 9
Lane County, Oregon
PARTNER POEM for I Knew a Cloud, from The Nature of Clouds
There is a cloud on my house.
The cloud has arrived in strings and wisps and ringlets.
When I step outside my house, the cloud is on me.
What color is the cloud? Pink and gray.
What does the cloud taste like? Rhododendron.
What does the cloud think? Hill. The cloud thinks about leaving
this hill. The cloud misses the ocean.
When I open my front door, pieces of cloud waft into the house.
The pieces float among sofas and chairs.
Now the cloud is stuck inside my house and I am sad for the
cloud. I open the back door to let it move on.
The rest of the cloud streams through my house. It touches
papers with its moist breathing. It swipes against walls and
makes them shine.
-Penelope Schott
Portland, Oregon
ASK the POEMS for I Knew a Cloud & from The Nature of Clouds
1. Poem, what feelings are you sharing with me?
2. What questions are you asking?
3. How are you mysterious?
4. What if clouds and people changed places?
5. How can people and clouds speak to each other?
Winter 07 Poetry Posts
Hiding
A caterpillar hides his true self and thrilling beauty in a
hiding place. As he hides in a shell, he decides to stop
hiding and bursts out. His true self is a thrilling butterfly.
The seed hides her sweet scent and beauty in a hiding
place. She hides in the ground, coming out little by little
and then she comes out as a sweet smelling pink rose.
Hannah Yi, age 10
Lane County, Oregon
Partner Poem
Out of Hiding
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.
Li-Young Lee
Chicago
Ask the Poems
1. Poem, where do you take place?
2. What do you invite me to wonder about?
3. How do you use size and color?
4. Why were you hiding?
5. When no one knows where you are, can you be anything you want?
Fall 07 Poetry Posts
Ode to My Feet
Ode to my feet, my roots to
the ground. My propellers whizzing
me through icy cold pools.
My motors running me down
the street. You may be smelly,
but thank you feet.
--Carly Ferguson, age 10
PARTNER POEM
from Ode to My Socks
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
knitted with her own
shepherd's hands,
two socks soft
as rabbits.
I slipped
my feet into them
as if
into
jewel cases
woven
with threads of
dusk
and sheep's wool.
Audacious socks,
my feet became
two woolen
fish,
two long sharks
of lapis blue
shot
with a golden thread,
two mammoth blackbirds,
two cannons,
thus honored
were
my
feet
by
these
celestial
socks.
--Pablo Neruda
ASK the POEMS
1. Poem, what makes you an ode?
2. What kinds of comparisons do you make?
3. Are you a serious poem? How do you show me that?
4. How do your hands connect you to the world around you?
5. What is the next step you will take?
Spring 07 Poetry Posts
Running Away
When my friend Hannah and I were four we decided to run away.
In her sister’s red wagon we put a dress, four dollars that we took from a bowl in the kitchen, an old pie tin full of mud that we stuck daisies in, an old tablecloth and a yoyo.
Hannah lived really close to Prince Pucklers so we could run away there.
We put on our shoes and started walking, stopping a couple of times to put things back in the wagon as they fell out.
When we got to Prince Pucklers, we bought ice cream from a surprised employee.
On the way back to my friend’s house we pretended to camp on the grass next to the sidewalk.
Running away was immensely fun and since we were only four we thought we actually ran away even though it was only for a half an hour.
--Madeleine Peara, 5th Grade, Lane County, Oregon
A Clearing
What lies at the end of enticing
country driveways, curving
off among trees? Often only
a car graveyard, a house-trailer,
a trashy bungalow. But this one,
for once, brings you
through the shade of its green tunnel
to a paradise of cedars,
of lawns mown but not too closely,
of iris, moss, fern, rivers of stone rounded
by sea or stream,
of a wooden unassertive large-windowed house.
The big trees enclose
an expanse of sky, trees and sky
together protect the clearing.
One is sheltered here
from the assaultive world
as if escaped from it, and yet
once arrived, is given (oneself
and others being a part of that world)
a generous welcome.
It's a paradise
as a paradigm for how
to live on earth,
how to be private and open
quiet and richly eloquent.
Everything man-made here
was truly made by the hands
of those who live here, of those
who live with what they have made.
It took time, and is growing still
because it's alive.
It is a paradise, and paradise
is a kind of poem; it has
a poem's characteristics:
inspiration; starting with the given;
unexpected harmonies; revelations.
It's rare among
the worlds one finds
at the end of enticing driveways.
--Denise Levertov
Questions to ask the poems:
1. What are other paradises?
2. When you come home after your journey, is home where you left it?
3. Do places change you, or do you change places?
4. What is the taste on your tongue?
5. How long can you stop before you start again?
This Poetry Post was produced through a partnership between the Young Writers Association and the Lane Education Service District.
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