Poetry Greatness: Chandler Lohner and Lyle Paul

I asked my students to write a poem about a memory. The memory could be happy, sad, recent, ancient, whatever. The requirements included: 20 lines, intentional word choice that incorporated development, voice, and showed me what they were saying instead of just telling me. Here are some of the top poems!

Eyelashes
by Chandler Lohner

I never knew

How close one could get

to becoming nothing but skin and bones.

A deflated pile of

Wrinkled flesh and

Loose eyelashes that I

just wanted to yell at

For not flying far enough

Into the heavens.

For leaving the puddle of

tears that she cried

For dancing back to mock

me.

And the many wishes I had made.

Please.

Please just hold out your hand

And collect them in your palms, if you would.

I blew them right to you, so why do you keep on returning them

I don’t want them.

I want her.

And it’s okay

if she doesn’t have any eyelashes
left.

Why? by Lyle Paul

The sizzling of my brain must be a delightful sound for him

We’re gonna jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton

Cooking, crackling, breaking, liquefying, bubbling like a witch’s potion gone wrong

Jump down turn around pick a bale a day

Am I a slave to him or my mind?

Jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton

The drums produce a cadence to which I cannot walk

I’m gonna get on my knees and pick a bale of cotton

My ravaged soul jumps to reach the aspirations but the nine pound hammer keeps me down

Get on my knees and pick a bale a day

Peace is only present in the pulp

We’re gonna pick pick pick pick pick a bale of cotton

Am I really seeing the same sun, the same moon, the same stars that the others see?

Pick pick pick pick pick a bale a day

Jumping at the little scrap of rope he lets down the cliff

Me and my papy gonna pick a bale of cotton

All I receive is disappointment

Me and my papy gonna pick a bale a day

Why can’t you be better?

Pick a bale a day

I wish I had a better son

Pick a bale a day

Why are you even here?

Stomp a bunch of boll weevils

Are you serious?

Pick a bale of cotton

I do the best I can

Pick a bale of a day

I wish you had a better one too

Lordy oh Lordy!

I’m only here because I have to be

Pick a bale of cotton

Would it be better if I was not serious?

Pick a bale a day

Why am I here?

Pick a bale a day

I am a coward

Pick a bale a day

I watch the expectations soar like a doomed space ship

It soars to the heavens

It soars to death

It soars into the unknown

It soars to death

The text in RED is the slave song “Pick a bale of cotton. The texts in BLUE are the questions my father has regarding me. The texts in GREEN are the responses that I have for my father. This poem shows the beginning of the torment my father’s disappointment causes me and shows how I became a slave to his ideals and my own mind. It also slightly foreshadows what is to come.

Disappointment by Lyle Paul

The anger of my father did not hurt me

Heart pierced by the arrow disappointment

Sitting in the long long hall, watching his ideals fall hither

Belief I was something that I was not

Scum sitting at the bottom of life’s glass

O sweet Virgin Mary what can I do?

Internally crying, shrieking, and wailing

Clawing at the cage’s wall in desperation like an animal

A smile spreads from ear to ear

Falseness of reality served a release sweeter than death

Never to soar like the eagle

Never to inhabit the hallowed hall

Always to disappoint, always always always

Ahead to the left stood the man in white

Ahead to the right sat the woman in black

Hemlock creeped up the obelisk between the two

Sheer acceptance coursed through me

No longer did the band of leather cause pain

No longer did the loss of faith cause pain

No longer did my father’s disappointment cause pain

...right?? I'm telling you. I'm constantly impressed by the young adults I'm so privileged to work with every day.

A Memory Poem: Hannah George

The first of my recollections stored away for none to see:

Teetering tricycles

sidewalking dangerously close

to the break of the earth

I could see the sea

I could feel my name

pattering against the backs of my ears

but my eyes could only think in front of me

That day I met my most steadfast companion

when my ears first met my eyes

My heart shuddered

My eyes blinked themselves clear

The waves I had loved

wrestled me into the ocean

slowly enough to startle.

Now I needed light to sleep

my dreams were daylight

unplagued by the feeling of falling

because I cautiously tread.

Fear faithfully accompanied me

a seemingly omnipotent best friend.

She scratched a moral compass on the back of my wrist

with the north star pointing to my past

lighting my path into a familiar circle

In encountering Risk

fear gave me a pinch

and I turned away.

When meeting Change, I see Fright’s shadow

and am reminded of all she’s done for me.

As horizons change my loyalties fade

the sunsets reveal her other half

the lights of the night reveal the deceit in my partner’s face

true colors glow in the dark

when it seems no one is watching

deceit can always be seen.

I sleep in the dark now.

A Memory Poem: Jordan Candler

7
I think I’m prettier than the rest of the girls in my class. They're too skinny.
8
I'm quitting my school’s basketball team. I’m not good at basketball. The other girls are faster than me. They won't like me if I'm not as fast as them.
9
Today I got called fat for the first time.
His name is Daniel.
He's very good at PE.  His feet move fast and mine do not so he used his to trample all over me. I did not cry.
10
I do not like my new school. I do not have friends here.
11
I don’t understand why I am the only person who sits alone at lunch.
11
Why do you keep telling me I smell weird? I don’t like it when you say I am ugly. I don’t like it when you laugh at me. I do not like it when you tell me I am stupid.
11
Every time you told me I had no friends, you broke something. You broke my walls as if my shattered remains made your mirror reflect better. Your tongue threw more dodge-balls at me than the kids did in PE and I’m tired of being pelted with you’re a loser you’re a loser you’re a loser you’re a loser.
my hands curl around my vocal chords searching for my last “stop it” but all I feel is choked
11
My mind is a museum and I wish you would stop hanging up paintings I do not want to see
My heart is the fragile sculpture you have to search very hard to find and if you break it, you buy it so stop throwing around your rock hard words and shattering everything with a touch of beauty
You speak in explosions and everything I can see is ablaze
I’m trying to block the fire with my last shred of decency but its edges are curling in and now I can’t look people in the eyes when they talk to me because all I see is a spark above a flood of gasoline.
11
You use keys as weapons and computer screens for a mouth and pixels pry open every piece of pride I have left.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but combinations of letters typed online should not be able to make me feel worthless.
83
Percent of girls report being bullied either in school or online.
56
Percent of students have witnessed some type of bullying at school.
90
Percent of bullying happens in 4th through 8th graders.
24 out of 25
Teachers who witness bullying in their class do not report it and see it as trivial and as something that will pass.
160,000
Students skip school each day due to fear of bullies
9
The age a girl’s self esteem peaks
9
The age I was called fat for the first time
16
Stop building armies in your mouth.
Stop using your words as warfare and shooting me with four letter bullets.
Build castles with your tongue and let others stand upon them.
16
Spill your heart from your mouth.
Do not destroy what is beautiful. See more than what is ugly.
If you need rose colored glasses to see each person as a glass half full of “do not dehumanize me” so be it.
16
You are a vessel and the things inside of you are so much more important than your frame. 
Make others know that.
Make yourself know that.

Where our Realities Waited: A Student Piece

I just....I can't quite...um....

forget it. There's no intro I can type that'll adequately prepare you for the haunting intensity of this beautiful poem. Read it & literally weep (I did...). 

Where our realities waited

              Emma Jogerst

1.

you are everything all at once

and I can see a thousand 

                                        lullabies

in your eyes

I die every time you look at me

And the sky is weeping now

Every drop is a word I can’t say

And when it kisses me the

                                            fire

Blooms again and

if you were mine

I could be okay

2.

oh

but I’m not sure what I would do to

have you touch me;

Burning into my legs

Because I’ve been waiting for you

To come along and strip me of all that I am.

Perhaps its suicide,

Perhaps I’m drowning,

Perhaps It’s hard to walk barefoot into the water

When I’m already so cold

3.

baby, baby brother

my soul is too old

lets write a thousand thousand tomorrows

we could burn brighter

as the earth becomes dimmer still

and I would not shake when I see you

its 3 am; youre asleep and

it hurts to look at the moon

without you

4.

your sleepy eyes are my favorite poem

but I want you for everything

you see I’ve been flipping you

over about a billion times

in my head until you’re black and bruised

a piece of the sky

because I can’t touch you

I’m writing this and every verse makes me feel raw

Stinging like an epilogue

The door is shut, the windows closed

But I still feel your very soul

5.

you’re my summer sunrise

and my pillow feels warm

lets build a fire and burn

ourselves into ashes and smoke

and melt into the clouds where we belong

I would paint a new world for you

That wouldn’t hurt so much

6.

how can he just stand there

and be so beautiful

he bangs his head to

the beat of my pulse

I feel so much for him

I want to find him underneath

the evergreen

7.

I am awakened by the still air of morning

and I got 4 hours of sleep

the branches are outlined against the temperate sky

I’m pretty sure there’s a world between

every curve that your voice makes

and it’s hard to write when I’m drowning

and it’s hard to think about you with your blue sweater on

the birds are telling me things

you’re sighing life into the world

8.

I can hear your heart,

It is in sync with mine

And I want to kiss your lips

Until all I see is stars

And sunshine

I would melt into you

And I wouldn’t have to feel this

Heavy weight on my chest

Forever

Remind me that I am

More than I feel

9.

Saturn sized worlds

Where our realities waited

And we lived by the sea

And packed ourselves tightly together

But it’s hard to look my mother in the eyes now

It’s hard to see my God before me

The silence is enough

I don’t want to leave this place

Because that means leaving you

10.

raw and red from the rain

brown eyed in the quad

i need more time to

explore you and your world

and all that you hide

a silent prayer has built churches in me

they wait for me to find the

nerve to touch your face

with the lights on

our realities wait between

shivers and sighs

and

moondust and starshine