All posts in Skinner West

First Hand

What can you hold in your hand? “Nonspecific stuff,” says Hua Xi in her poem, “Handfuls,” as well as snow “on a summer’s day” that “must come from somewhere inside me.” The speaker also […]

Rickety Doors and More

For our most recent session, we read and discussed Justin Danzy’s “A rickety door, a back one or side, not stable.” At the midpoint of the residency, this poem is the first to include […]

Walk the Walk

Last week we discussed our most rhymingest poem to-date, “People Walk Around” by Frederick Seidel. Skinner students are already savvier regarding slant or half rhymes; while Seidel’s haphazard scheme relies largely on the impact […]

Lying About

James Tate’s poem, “Untitled” begins, “I sat at my desk and contemplated all that I had accomplished / this year.” The speaker then runs through a litany of ‘accomplishments’ growing more and more nutty, […]

You Say You Want a Resolution

This week we read “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye. As the titles suggests, the poem is about the New Year celebration, though it focuses on its subject obliquely, through a central […]

Food for Thought

As always, it was a treat to be back with Skinner West students. I introduced myself as well as the program and went over what to expect for the next several weeks. There were […]

Centomental Education

Our inevitable last classes occurred this week. I brought in one of my own poems to share, giving students the opportunity to quiz me on its particulars. “Finding Bigfoot,” inspired by the TV show […]

Befriended

After a few weeks off, we reunited for our penultimate sessions, reading and discussing “maggie and milly and molly and may” by E. E. Cummings. I suggested that this poem was a kind of […]

Sound Effects

The weather outside school walls happened to be warm and springlike, contrasting with the scene set in Robert Frost’s famous poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Arguably, the opposite environment intensified its […]

Surprise!

Cats jumping on us from out of nowhere, dandelions, bottle caps, and more are some of the things that the speaker in Dean Young’s “Quiet Grass, Green Stone” describes, confessing, “Me who wants to […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET