Writing

Inspired by The River Merchant’s Wife by Rihaku, trans. Ezra Pound
When my hair was long enough to get tangled in the New England wind and my bangs left my eyes only slightly exposed, you came to me with a freckled face and sunburnt hands from a day of lobstering. 
At 16, we met in Boothbay Harbor, when you were still learning how to run your father’s business after he died the November before. It wasn’t long before that accent that sounded more like Boston than Maine became something I never wanted to stop listening to. 
At 17, you taught me how to paint buoys and haul lobster traps during the early mornings when the fog still clung to the harbor. I stole your sweater during these chilly trips and even though the wool itched at my skin, I always kept it on. 
At 18, you became busier with work and stopped taking me out on those harbor cruises. I would catch you briefly when you stopped by the bookstore where I worked or in the hallways at school. We didn’t talk as much, but my mom thought it was best since I was about to go to college. 
At 20 I still wrap that itchy sweater around myself during the New Hampshire winters. And when I go home to Maine, I still hope that one of the boats I see in the harbor will be you. 
– Abby Bonner, 11th grade, AMHS

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)