I can’t believe O-School students are halfway through their 20-week poetry residency. For week 14, we revisit poems we have written together throughout our residency. We read and discussed the poem “Dear Poet,” by Lee Bennett Hopkins. In his poem, Hopkins shares great advice to poets, that rewriting can help strengthen their poems. This allows a poet to try new thing and make changes, to reimagine their poem in a brand-new way. Rewriting it/rewriting it/rewriting it/until what you have is a poem like no other poet as written/or rewritten before.
Students were asked to pick one of their old poems that they either didn’t get a chance to complete or wished to edit. Some students decided to free write, allowing their imagination to guide them in creating a fresh new poem. Please enjoy these wonderful poems below.
Group A (Middle School)
I Don’t Wanna Go to School
I don’t wanna go to school,
half of school is bad.
When things are good,
people have to ruin them.
The only part when school
is good, is when people
prove they like me.
When people don’t ruin
my art.
Therapy is good.
Math is annoying, but good.
Base class kinda good.
I do not like the fact that
I have to walk up the stairs
for music, like my legs
are weak.
Please principal, give me
a better role in this school.
Heart
My life is jaw dropping,
heart stopping, time stopping.
Grim walking, case dropping
Dime dropping, dime stocking.
My life is so painful.
Shannadah The Shadow Goddess
Shanndah rises from the sky.
Uses her spell to make everyone
or anything have a shadow.
She will appear during a storm.
The wind will make her close the door.
Her quote is “You don’t always
have to hide your shadow.”
Maybe in Another Universe
Maybe in another universe,
I am able to live correctly.
Maybe in Another Universe,
I fit in society.
Maybe in another universe,
he isn’t screaming out of me,
a girl, but I don’t feel like one.
Maybe in another universe,
I don’t feel like this.
Maybe in another universe,
I am perfect.
Maybe in another universe,
I don’t wish for other universes.
Group B (Middle School)
Ranting About Haikus & This is Ironic
Haikus are stupid
they follow too many rules
An inanity
I am writing this
outside, but I hate outside
this is ironic
King of the Pencils
I lay my pencils out, shaped like my crown.
ready to rule.
My pencil writes “Gymnopedie I,” my pencil draws
portraits of people, my pencil also slams against
desks and writes messages into books.
My pencil is writing this summary right now,
as it should. Every weekend, my pencil slides
back into the backpack with the rest of its family,
and waits for the next school day. It races the air
or spins in its owner’s hand every time it leaves home.
At every moment we perform a unique ritual
where we all leave the backpack and lay out onto
Our story is short, but our activities never end.
Blue
Blue is bold and beautiful.
Blue like the sky on a sunny day.
Blue is how I feel, when feeling lonely.
Blue are the waves of the ocean.
Blue masking tape when moving homes.
Blue Blue Blue
Blue and black fish swim in the tank.
My mind is never blank.
Birthday candles have candles and cake,
Summer is my reflection in a lake.
Blue is when I’m sad,
I don’t want to be mad.
Blue is in me & you.
The Legend of Squirkle
Long ago and far away,
in a castle in the sky.
There lived a being, mighty and great,
that shall never die.
And it was called a “tiger,” and it ruled
for years and years
until one day when it all changed,
and everything got weird.
And the mighty tiger
who said it would never face death,
was losing all its power,
and breathing its final breaths!
So, it called a lowly traveler,
who was just passing by. . .
to take over and save the world
right after she dies.
But soon an evil snake appeared,
and it laughed a mighty laugh.
It then fought with the traveler,
and beat him with his wrath.
The traveler fell off the cloud
and splashed into the sea.
He shall awaken from his sleep
and King he shall be.
