For the second week of poetry club, the middle schoolers at Hale listened and discussed the hybrid poetic-prose memoir of Khadijah Queen’s book I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Was Wearing. We discussed intersectionality and feminism. We discussed the different societal roles people are pressured into and how everyone has to “preform” gender. We spoke about why it was important to be vulnerable and kind and earnest and speak up for what’s right. And finally, we discussed a poetry style known as stream-of-consciousness which honors the brain’s natural cadence and thought pattern, and how to balance our thoughts with imagery. Here’s a poem from this workshop, published anonymously.
Today
by anonymous
7th grade
Today I woke up with my cat
meowing to feed him
threw out the garbage
and got reminded
that I had to be a strong man
doing all the work
driving to school with my 30-pound bag
and act cool and strong
to my friends
being made fun of because I’m smart
being called a nerd
calling me weak
and poor and had to take it
