The Poet's Corner - IX, August 10, 2020

I want to be

like the waves on the sea,

like the clouds in the wind,

but I’m me.

One day I’ll jump

out of my skin.

I’ll shake the sky

like a hundred violins.

            Sandra Cisneros

            from her book The House on Mango Street

***

            Many times The House on Mango Street found itself on the reading list for a literature class I taught. I always loved this little poem that the “heroine” of the book wrote about her secret wishes. Usually it became an inspired writing prompt for my students.

            Also, early in my career as a teaching poet I discovered, and devoured, Ken Koch’s book, Wishes, Lies, and Dreams.

“When Kenneth Koch entered the Manhattan classrooms of P.S. 61, the children, excited by the opportunity to work with an instructor able to inspire their talent and energy, would clap and shout with pleasure. In this vivid account, Koch describes his inventive methods for teaching these children how to create poems and gives numerous examples of their work….”

            How wonderful, I thought, to visit a public school classroom and be greeted and over and over by applause!

            I built “lessons” on a lot of Koch’s ideas. My suspicion is that along the way most teaching poets entice students to reveal “secrets” in their own poems by asking them to write about their hidden wishes…as famous writers like Cisneros, Koch, Langston Hughes and so many others have.

            And then we teaching poets challenge those “new poets” to the bravery of sharing those poems in print! or outloud!          

            Oh, it can be addictive, contagious—this writing poetry and sharing through its magic!...

            Below: responses from some Benton Elementary School students at the end of California Poets in the Schools workshops. (January 1987)

***

When I’m writing poetry

I feel like letting my spirits soar

Sometimes I do

When I do, I feel like writing my

brains out

 

Once I start writing I don’t want

to stop

That is how I feel when I’m writing

poetry

                        Tony Ebster

**

I feel like a shooting star

when I write poetry

It’s fun to write words that

rymh with a lady like Eva

I feel joyful and happy when

I write poetry

Deep down inside it feels like

a sunset that never fades

away,

Or a baby fawn running through

a vast green meadow

When Eva comes in my mind

I say “All right Eva’s here, now

we get to do poetry”

                        Wade Westphal

***

Way deep down inside of me

I feel that poetry has something special you can not

resist to write. Poetry always helps me when I feel bad.

 

What is Poetry sometimes I think,

I think that poetry is a job.

I think poetry has a world of its own.

 

When I write poetry

I feel as this poetry has a meaning to life.

When I write poetry I feel the sun awaking

in a dawn of happiness.

                        Amber Huffman

The Poet’s Corner IV – August 5, 2020

Prettier than Paul Newman’s Eyes

that’s how pretty they were—Walt’s eyes.

Walter Grasvydas Geugaudas. I first laid my eyes

on Walt as he strode across the hot sand—

Eichelman Beach, 1959—barefoot lanky and

lovely—not thin—just right, his bare flesh

a designer set. I swear he wore his body

like a male model. He was so pretty

I was too overcome to let my eyes slip from waist

down over his front to his thighs. I was 15

and he was 17 and he had midnight black hair

thick and slightly wavy and the most intensely waterfall-blue

eyes I’d ever seen or have ever seen. But

he was shy. He talked slow when he talked.

And I think now his parents might have been “DP’s”—

that’s what we called them then—“displaced persons.”

I remember a lot of them tossing or kicking a ball

rather listlessly—rather all afternoonly—boredly

for grown men, and there were many of them

after World War II in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I only got close enough

to hear what wasn’t English—but

I eventually got close enough to hear Walt speak

his slow, selective English. He was Lithuanian,

the only Lithuanian I’d ever laid eyes on.

He was the kind of overpowering gorgeous you’d be warned against

by your fretful mother.

I didn’t listen. I stayed late at the big log fires

at Eichelman Beach with Walt and all his friends, “The Animals”—

I inched and edged closer to that magnificent…no,

not animal: 20th century David.

 I don’t remember how many times I kissed his forbidden lips,

stretched against him in the sand, fire flickering—

don’t remember how many next days I was grounded

after how many mad races home from the Beach, curfew tolling,

upsetting all the glory of summer, deliciously hot….

 Autumn came.

I don’t remember when Walter Grasvydas Geugaudas

left my sight.

 I was told he came home from Vietnam

without legs

I was told he always deliberately wheeled himself

 I was told he once deliberately wheeled himself

into the busy middle of the highway

 I wasn’t told, but knew how deliberately

he must have lifted what was left of himself

to shove the chair with his beautiful hips

to make it turn and tilt and slide

He must have then thrown himself down, hard.

                                    Eva Poole-Gilson

***

            This was one of the poems I sent to the Key West Literary Seminar 2016, hoping to be chosen by Billy Collins (U.S. poet laureate 2001-2003) for his week-long poetry workshop that summer.

            I made the cut, along with 10 or 11 others, and this poem was discussed during that intense week. I received feedback from all of them and Billy.

            Since then, I’ve not changed the poem much. Still, it would be wonderful if you’d respond to it. You’ll find it also in the Blog section of my website where you can leave comments in the Contact section. I’ll include it in my collection-in-progress, working title: Her Best, She Thought. www.evapoole-gilson.com

            But it also seems a good time to let this poem out early, doesn’t it?—to remind us of the millions of “displaced” people right now.

            On our stubbornly beautiful blue globe, wars, poverty, crime, and endless legal and immigration tragedies still plague us…. Can we end them?

***

“Memory in America suffers amnesia.”

—Meridel LeSueur, American writer, originally from Wisconsin

1900 – 1996

***

 

 

 

 

The Poet’s Corner IV – July 21, 2020

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The Puppy Speaks

I guess my favorite season is summer.

I watch the mailman.

I think about pizza.

I want spaghetti.

I know how to roll over.

I feel very happy.

              Guillermo Nava

***        

             I’m having so much fun putting this Poet’s Corner together!

             I’m thrown back to puppyhood!—re-romping anthologies of children’s poems written in workshops I led through California Poets in the Schools.

              The poem above, and the two students’ poems below, “WannaBe” and “When I get to be a fire hydrant,” were written in classes taught by Marilyn Blake Phillip and myself at Lo-Inyo Elementary School in Lone Pine, five years ago. My poem, last, is also from 2015.

              From childhood I seemed to believe everything had a spirit.

              As a poet-teacher I always, and still, can’t resist sharing that childhood “intuition” with others: kind of like tossing a little ball to energetic pups who might want to tear after it, maybe slide on belly toward it, shake it around in the mouth, scoot off to hide, and CHEW: What is that made of?  What can I make of it?

***

WannaBe

I’m just a wrinkled up plastic bag

But I wanna be a fox leather designer purse.

If I was a fox leather designer purse

Then I could carry more important things like a phone

And my owner would show me off and like me.

I would go to the mall and take care of my owner’s money

And she would keep me for a really long

Time and she would be proud of me.

I would feel so happy because everyone would want me

For I would be the newest prettiest purse

I would be all over Facebook and Twitter.

But I’m only a flimsy wrinkly plastic bag

So I’ll just be happy holding small things that are important to

me.

                             Gracie Gutierrez

***

When I get to be a fire hydrant

I will save lives every day

I will be kind

And I won’t mind having dogs

Stop every ten seconds to take a break

And I will help firefighters.

I will be the best fire hydrant

And I will put the other hydrants to shame

And I will help everybody around me

And I will care for people

And I’ll be a good role model for people

And I will love my job

And I’ll be good at it

I will put out raging fires

And I will unite people to fight fires

And I will be loyal to my cause

And I’ll be available always

I wouldn’t care what time they call

And I’ll never move from the spot

Of glory where all hydrants

Belong

And I’ll show the world

That hydrants are the bomb.

                             Walker Rost

***

What the Rainbow Remembered

the smell of sweet clover

bathing my big feet

the echo of the thunder

scaring the bunnies

the clouds pushing me out—

jealous!

and the tender raindrops:

tiny children riding down me

              like

                            a

                                      slide

Once I put on my brightest cloak

in a meadow of tall, tall grass

hidden in a narrow, emerald valley

--too far from cities to be seen by people—

and then, once, then, only then

the leprechauns danced that glen

from dusk to dawn

and I watched in awe

until first light

when my love for the Earth

melted me away

to bloom another day I dreamed

in flowers

                             Eva Poole-Gilson

***

The Poet's Corner - July 16, 2020

              Some of you said you really liked what you found in the last Poet’s Corner (July 10). That was the Black poet, Langston Hughes, and a couple of his famous poems about dreams.

              I didn’t meet Langston—and other inspiring Black poets—until the middle 1960’s. Those were the days when you could get a Masters in Comparative Literature at a U.S. university—White—without encountering one Black poet to compare with ranks of other Western poets you studied.

              I remain an admirer of Langston Hughes to this day. I go back to his work every time I lead a writing workshop to children or adults. Interesting: samples of the work of most of the poets I studied in grad school are not in my trusty, teaching portfolio.

              Below is a poem of Langston’s I introduced to Lo-Inyo Elementary School students in Lone Pine in 2017. Before using it as a “prompt” with the children, I sat down to see if I could spin off of it to write a poem of my own. That’s the usual process I go thru before I use a poem with young kids. If I can manage to create a rough draft of my own based on the model in 10 minutes, I’m pretty confident the children can do it in 15 or 20 minutes toward the end of an hour-long class.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

 The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.

The rain makes running pools in the gutter.

The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

 And I love the rain.

                             Langston Hughes

***

Weeping Willow Song

                             After Langston Hughes “April Rain Song”

Let the weeping willow tree bend over you like your mother.

Let the weeping willow tree make shade for you to nap in.

Let the weeping willow listen to your dreams.

 

The weeping willow dances slowly like a graceful, old ballerina.

The weeping willow talks to the moon while you’re asleep.

The weeping willow has lots of sparrows for friends.

 And I want the weeping willow for my friend.

                                                          Eva Poole-Gilson

***

Sea Song

Let the waves rock you to sleep.

Let seals play you music.

Let the sea talk to you.

 The boat shall jump over waves.

The heart of the sea is where fish live.

The fish eat pink purple green seaweed.

 And the sea will tell you I love you.

                                           Lily James

                                         third grader

***

What Awaits Tomorrow

Let tomorrow come with the

sound of Birds

Let tomorrow bring all the

kindness in the world

Let tomorrow show us the

warmth of the hands of our

loved ones

 Let tomorrow hand us all the love that we need

Let tomorrow awake you from your slumber

Let tomorrow hold you close against the

warmth from the sun

What awaits tomorrow is all

up to you…..

                                           Stephanie Valdez Vega

                                          sixth grader

***

Are you home-schooling some young poet who wants to take a spin off Langston too?