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Student Poem

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Sliver of a Life
by Niyathi Chakrapani

She had told the reporter,
“I loved him, I loved him,”
But the newspaper only printed it once.
There was also
A quote from his favorite baseball player;
Some clammy, optimistic Bible text;
His birthday, a mere memory now;
Awards from college, received years ago
In subjects he did not pursue;
Names of family members he had not talked to in years;
Meaningless compliments;
His job, which he hated more than one could imagine;
A blurry picture with too much sunlight and exposure;
And his love of the Yankees,
Quite understated in saying he merely “loved the team.”

She had told the reporter,
“I loved him, I loved him,”
With the tears that she abhorred
Sprinting down to her fragile chin,
Pouring down like livid rain.
The reporter feigned pity and said,
“I am sorry, ma’am. This must be hard.”
She wanted to punch his contrived smile.
There was anger and sorrow in her eyes,
The most pitiful of combinations.

And when she read the newspaper that day
She took all the liquor in the house
And smashed their bottles
Till the shards became paste,
Sprinkled across the now-chipped wooden floor
Like freshly fallen snow.

The little square of words,
A banal sliver of a life,
Or a stanza trying to compensate
For a beautiful elegy.
The meaningless banter of a child,
Repartee and badinage,
A cruel joke played with good intentions
On the most mournful of souls.

For in that little square of words
There was no mention
Of how he always got ice cream on his nose,
And laughed as she wiped it off and licked her finger;
Of his yellow, pirate-like grin
Which could light up the room
More than the whitest and straightest of insincere smiles;
Of how he refused to leave the stadium
After the Yankees lost
Because he couldn’t bear to be in his home, in comfort,
With the thought of their failure looming in his mind;
Of how he cooked Thanksgiving dinner
Because she had a fever that weekend,
And though they both ate burned turkey that year,
It was the best turkey they ever had.

As she told the reporter,
“I loved him, I loved him,”
She knew she would never drink again
For the drunkenness of another
Was what had killed her love.
After that vow she grabbed the last bottle of brandy
And threw it over her fence,
As far as her slender arms could bear,
Knowing her pain lay in that bottle
And wishing it could shatter as easily.
There was anger and sorrow in her eyes,
The most pitiful of combinations.

She ran back to the newspaper,
Intent on ripping it to shreds,
But could not bring herself to harm
That little square of words,
A banal sliver of a life,
The last dregs of a forgotten eulogy
Spoken only in her mind.

For on that paper there was printed
A quote from his favorite baseball player;
Some hopeful Bible text;
His birthday, a loving memory now;
Awards from college, received years ago
In subjects he wished he had pursued;
Names of family members who loved him;
Innumerable compliments;
His job, which he only continued out of love;
A picture taken in a beautiful meadow;
And his love of the Yankees,
Quite understated in saying he merely “loved the team,”
But stated nonetheless.
And bottommost of all there was printed
Three simple words, more innocent without repetition,
Quoted with a name:
“I loved him.”

So she clutched the paper to her heart
And let fall her abhorred tears.

 

 

Niyathi Chakrapani is a 15-year-old poet from Sammamish, Washington who received four regional gold medals and a national silver medal for her literature in the Scholastic Young Artists and Writers national competition, as well as several local awards in the KCLS library system’s Rhyme On! competitions and the Issaquah Youth Board Poetry Slam. Niyathi loves to write poems about her deepest feelings and observations about the world, as well as to put herself in the shoes of other people and write poems from their perspective. She also loves to write and perform songs, volunteer, and eat chocolate.

Student Poem

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Queen’s Room
by Katie

the queen’s room like
parking in a sea of China
dishes

the silver tin on a table
opening memories

the small tinge on the pillow
is like a useful unnoticed
antidote being stored away

I smell solid gold in the queen’s
room

is the queen home? because
I’m snooping in her room

I’m not supposed to
be here. See me wiggling out

 

Katie wrote this poem as a third grader at View Ridge Elementary. She recited it last night for Caroline Kennedy and a sold-out audience at the Seattle First Baptist Church. The members of the Sanislo Elementary School Poetry Club and a Seattle University student also recited.  The event was sponsored by the Seattle Public Library and Elliott Bay Books for National Poetry Month. What, you didn’t know it was poetry month?

Student Poem

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Galileo Demands An Apology
by Sarah Groesbeck

 

“Eppur si muove: and yet it moves.”
- Galileo Galilei

How fickle and stubborn
you are. Once praising my telescope and
the celestial bodies uncovered,
now branding me a heretic
for going against God and His scripture by saying
we are not the center.
I set out only to discover the truth;
to follow the evidence
with a mind open to wherever it may lead.
You, however, carelessly dismiss my results
by thumbing through verses.
And yet it moves.
I implore you, open your eyes and look
to the heavens, to our sister Venus
and the revolving moons of Jupiter.
See what I see;
only then will you discover
the Earth is moving.

 

Sarah Groesbeck, a Seattle native, is a student at Highline Community College. She is going for her AA degree with an emphasis in Mathematics. She decided to be brave and took a Creative Writing class where she discovered a new delight in poetry.

 

 

Student Poem

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Orpheus

by Miles Hewitt

 

& in between passionless crimes—

(so for the lack of humanity,

  the careless abandon

and the forgoing of burden)

I looked into your eyes & thought

 

I AM ORPHEUS

 

& you smiled

& asked me

what I was thinking about

I brushed you away

off the bed

pushed you over the nightstand as

the lamp with wavy grasping shade reached

& the globe on the shelf & the maps

on the walls slipped & sighed

& you collapsed on the ground—

 

‘I don’t know’ —

 

but I wasn’t lying.

 

Miles Hewitt of Vancouver, Washington was one of five student poets chosen as finalists in the National Student Poets Program. Miles represents the West region of the United States. The awards were announced at the 2012 National Book Festival in Washington DC in September. The National Student Poets Program is in its inaugural year. It is a joint project of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

Miles has been writing since the third grade. In the eighth grade, he discovered musical artists Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and moved on to songwriting. Since then, he’s penned more than 100 songs and self-recorded two albums. Miles fell in love with poetry more recently. A junior now at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, he’s a member of a small group of writers that come together to workshop one another’s pieces and offer support. Outside school, Miles serves as the President of the Young Democrats of Clark County and as the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of his school newspaper. He’s considering a career in political communications or speechwriting if the “rock-and-roll-poet” line of business doesn’t pan out.

READING IN OLYMPIA:   Miles Hewitt and Kathleen Flenniken will be be presenting poems (and perhaps Miles will perform a few songs) at 6:00 p.m. in the Columbia Room of the Legislative Building (State Capitol) on Thursday, November 29. The program is sponsored by the Washington State Library and is free and open to the public.

Student Poem

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Stranger at a Funeral
Eliot Johnson

 

Who was this guy? And why
am I at his funeral? Some friend
of my grandfather, godfather of my uncle,
whose name I hadn’t heard until yesterday
when my mom searched my closet for a dress shirt
because my dad wanted me to see this.

We stand in the back with the less-related, the second class mourners,
nearer to the daylight and the fresh air. Someone passes out candles. In the front,
the priest, obscured in thick smoke, recites verses in Russian,
or Latin, or something, the auctioneer for the corpse. A woman in a pink shawl
whom I caught a glimpse of as she disappeared behind the stage
cuts into the priest’s recitation with disembodied chants.
As he talks, the priest swings his incense ball on its chain
like an exterminator fumigating an apartment. The smoke holds back
whatever light penetrates the thick curtains and obscures
the saints staring vacantly from the walls. Was the church always
this dark, or did years of incense leave stains like cigarette smoke?
(When was the last time they aired this place out?)
The dead man in the open box barely registers as
a sideshow against this smoky cave they’ve put him in.

There are no stories, no memories, just the smoke, the blue hands crossed
on the motionless chest, and the quiet sobbing from the first row.
The bereaved file past the casket and kiss the metal icon
laid on his forehead. The priest asks us to pray that the dead man
chooses not to become a ghost. The woman in front of me
crosses herself for the hundredth time. Then, finally,
it’s over. We blow out the narrow yellow candles, the pallbearers load the coffin
into a scuffed black hearse, and the mourners disperse, squinting, into the grey
Seattle drizzle. Everything appears normal again as I slide into my dad’s SUV,
and we leave the church behind to go see Nana at the hospital.

A moment important for those close
just sort of sailed by me, noted, but without impact,
another death on the news.

 

Eliot Johnson is 21, lives in Okanogan, and is earning a transfer degree at Wenatchee Valley College in Omak. Eliot writes, “I’ve messed around writing fiction for most of my life. I actually started this poem several years ago after the funeral of my uncle’s godfather, but didn’t make much of it until recently, when I re-worked it for the poetry component of a creative writing class.”

Student Poem

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Ode to S
by Kate (3rd Grade)

S swirls around each star,
it dances on the rain cloud of the
world.
S,
you hear it coming
when S streams by,
as if it was late for something
almost as important as a new
born baby stepping into the light of
the universe.
S has the texture of dew
in the morning,
as the mist streams out of
the night before,
S dives into the depths
of children’s words
sometimes,
separated,
soaring,
S.

 

Kate wrote her poem, “Ode to S,”  as a third grader at View Ridge Elementary in Seattle. I had the privilege of working with Kate through Writers in the Schools, a wonderful program that inspires students to write creatively and powerfully by placing professional, passionate writers in the classroom.  In the 2011-12 school year, 24 writers-in-residence taught poetry, fiction, comics, memoir, and playwriting to 5,520 students in the greater Puget Sound region.  WITS will celebrate the publication of a new student anthology on Sunday, September 30 at 5:00pm at Benaroya’s Recital Hall, with a reading by student contributors.  The event is free, open to the public, and unforgettable.

WITS is part of Seattle Arts and Lectures, who will be honored with a Mayor’s Arts Award on August 31 at Seattle Center.  Congratulations SAL!

Student Poem

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Today’s poem is by Rose, age 16, who participated in the Pongo Teen Writing Project in the King County Juvenile Detention system. Her poem is featured in There Had to Have Been Someone, one of 13 print poetry anthologies that Pongo has published over the past 17 years. Please watch a short video by John Sharify, Poetry flows from teens behind bars, featured on KING5 News yesterday, for more information about Pongo’s important work with distressed youth.

 

Ice Cream Man

I just thought you should know
that sometimes I’m afraid of you.
I don’t mind you rep’ing the gangs,
but sometimes when I look into your eyes,
I see violence against me,
I see violence against your grandma,
and it hurts me inside.

I just thought you should know,
I want to work in here someday,
helping kids that went through what I went through,
help them understand why I ran away from home,
because my parents beat me,
because the stress in my life
made me do something stupid.
I was the girl who stopped going to school,
I was the girl who stopped listening to her parents,
who started drinking and smoking.

I just thought you should know
that one side of me wants to be with you
and one side of me does not,
and the side that does not is confused,
feels like a lost sheep.

I just thought you should know,
I see myself with a happy family
in a park, Oakland, CA, eating barbequed lamb
next to the swimming pool while dads play tennis
and moms talk and serve food
and all the Tongan people speak to the ice cream man.

I just thought you should know
I’m tired of seeing what people do on the streets,
and I’m tired of being part of it.

I just thought you should know,
I want to say hello again to the ice cream man.

–
Dedicated to Z

 

“Ice Cream Man” previously appeared in There Had to Have Been Someone, 2011.

 

Rose, age 16, wrote “Ice Cream Man” with the Pongo Teen Writing Project, which teaches and mentors personal poetry by distressed teens all over King County, especially those who have a hard time expressing themselves. Pongo is the brainchild of poet Richard Gold, who has worked tirelessly to create, maintain, and promote this program that helps  youth understand their feelings, build self-esteem, and take better control of their lives. Pongo’s trained volunteers establish writing projects inside juvenile detention centers, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites.  The Pongo web site provides writing opportunities and invites youth to write poetry on the web site.  They also happily share resources and teaching methods with counselors and teachers, all for free. The program was featured on KING5 News in Seattle yesterday.

Pongo Teen Writing Project from Richard Gold on Vimeo.

Student Poem

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True Music

 

Playing an instrument is like reading a book
With each stroke, the plot thickens and creates a hook
It starts off happy, until disaster comes
Music explodes like thunder then is followed by quiet hums
Caused by the disaster no one knew would come

Music begins returning as a hero appears in the gloom
Slowly, a magnificent crescendo fills the room
For the hero began the battle with the dreaded evil that lay before him
The song’s intense, as well as the battle
But the hero is winning, and his rival starts to cower

For the battle is finally over
As peace is restored to the land
Both with song and story
Beginning to end

 

 

Kevin is an eighth grader in Janet Freece’s Language Arts class at Mt. Solo Middle School in Longview. I visited last month and had the pleasure of hearing Kevin and many of his classmates recite their own poems as well as classic poems like “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. They had also worked on a project “interviewing” dead poets, and turned some of their questions on me. Congratulations to Janet for creating so much enthusiasm in her classroom for poetry!

Student Poem

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Little Magics

 

They loved pie, and the small
chew toy in the yard.
They loved the pat
and the emotional tug of a friend,
they loved run on sentences.
They loved the higgeldy piggeldy topsy-turvy
up and down over and out sound.
They looked at the glass
purred and ate.
They popcorned, gnawed, and
squeaked, and they loved it.
They hid, then scratched.
They hated that.
They loved helicopters
and screaming for no reason.
They loved skipping
the middle and going to the end.
They loved mixing and
not matching.
They enjoyed poems
They loved words
They loved and loved
every sound and feel of all the
little magics
They loved song
They smiled at Alexander
the Great, and they understood
every second.
They loved chicken
soup.
They loved me.
They loved random hum
like messy classrooms
and they loved sayings
and not endings.

 

Cameron was a fifth grader at View Ridge Elementary when he wrote “Little Magics.”  He worked with me through the Writers in the Schools program in Seattle.

Student Poem

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This is the poem

 

 

This person is Taylor, whose wacky noises and lip piercings
tell a story all its own.

This person is Tyler, who’s always there to put the broken pieces of shattered reality back together.

This person is April, who’s home to me, a mom, who’s always there for me.

This person is Dawson, whose jokes hold then shatter like the fiery explosions of the fourth.

This person is Corey, who’s due to be a dad, and who’s waiting for the day the water slides.

This person is Britney, who’s Corey’s first real love, and who is also waiting for the water to slide.

This person is Virginia, who’s quiet and shy, a little misunderstood. But, she is my best friend.

This person is Shanon, who’s outspoken, sometimes funny but a little pushy.

This person is Hay Hay, who’s always here at Marshall, and who’s always there to help bail me out of an NC in math class.

This person is Tabitha, who’s been a sister to me my whole life, but was never blood related.

This person is Anastasia, who’s Tabitha’s daughter, and who’s a little bit obsessed with littlest pet shop, and moshi monsters.

This person is Jaden, who’s Tabitha’s son, and who’s obsessed with video games just like his deadbeat of a dad.

This person is Cindy, who’s psycho, a compulsive liar, and a bad case to be Shanon’s mom.

This person is Ron, who’s always tried to hard to make everyone happy.

This person is Marge, whose love kept me happy as a child, but the only thing i have of hers, a necklace, only brings sorrow.

This person is Dee, who’s a second mother, and who shows that no matter what, you can power through any obstacle.

This person is Joe, whose heart is always in the right place.

This person is from my dream, who’s helped me look at the brighter side of things.

This person is Leroy, whose love for his workshop, wife, children, and grandchildren, like me, show us to cherish the time we have together, cuz life doesn’t last for eternity.

This person is My Father, who’s always haunting my dreams never stopping once to let me forget all he’s done to me.

This person is me, a girl who’s always searching for meaning in this world, like a single river looking to find a vast ocean.

 

 

Teah is an eighth grader at Thurgood Marshall Middle School, Olympia. Thank you, Teah.