Ms. Widman
High School Creative Writing
This week the students at Amundsen had fun on the internet. We read “Freedom” by Kimberly Ann Southwick and “Poem with Kennings and Nuka Cola” by Reilly Cox and talked about video games as inspiration for poetry. We talked about the levels of diction and how language and tone build a world and atmosphere in a poem. They were tasked with writing a poem that incorporated language or imagery from a game they enjoyed. We then took the early drafts and put them through Google Translate into one language then another then another then another until retranslating the final poem back into English. We had a lot of fun with the surprises AI gave us via Google Translate. I’m excited to publish the poets below!
Pokemon Pokemon Pokemon
by Gianna O.
Want to be a Pokemon master?
Then play Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
where you can catch Pokemon
under the hot, fake sun.
Catching as many as you can,
battling other trainers
like getting into a divorce fight.
Aim for the top, everyone
defeat the gym trainers.
Color Theory
By Skylar P.
Adachi cut through the barriers between worlds
Sea fire eats water that makes pixels in the sea
Punish the intense purple within and without
Creating universes with building blocks that need to be placed in them
Tonfa’s teeth are falling out
Safe circulation
Calendula shines through reality
The hand that held the edge of reality fell away
If the colors match,
Burn together
The walls were replaced together
A river of ink spatters
Shouting with rage, the prison was surrounded
Colors came back together
Bleeding together
A warm hug
Rainbow is safe again
Friends, Appreciation, A Colleague Don’t Get Left Behind
by Koraima A.
Friends,
appreciation,
a colleague
don’t get left behind.
See every dead drop.
You cannot enter the lava;
it cannot enter the water.
You have reached the goal,
but that was in the background.
Hey music player,
why play with your partner?
We cannot stay apart, we have to stick together to move forward.
Can it cause death?
It’s not my fault; it’s my conscience now.
Would that be okay with you?
No remorse in your eyes: a suspected killer.
This world is still mortal, not a player.
We are working to return home with our treasure: precious stones.
Let’s run.
Come on.
This temple is beautiful.
Judge my life.
A game of life or death.
Thank you, my love.
See you again soon.
