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Inquiry to a Teenaged Plum
By Jihu Choi, VI Form
Editor’s notes: Jihu Choi is the recipient of the William Otis Prize. The William Otis Prize is given in memory of a member of the Class of 1907 and is awarded to that student who, in the judgment of the English Department, has submitted an outstanding verse during the past year.
hey plum, hey.
your Life so purple, why can’t
you see It in
Light? you,
you want the World
to see
You so Bad
but read
how magnolias
grow. bruised
& purpled. Know,
they aren’t free. until they
break
Open, and none are
trying, you see?
they aren’t trying to look
up.
Be
cause they broke.
broke Open.
Break.
go belly up,
burst Open, record
“What is inside you?”
you have the Light
in your Flesh? is
It tart?
or does It
give Life?
hey Plum.
hey, tell me something i don’t
know, it’d Hurt for You to break
open Your Soft flesh,
Breathe out the things You Kept from me
until:
yellow to Brown
white to Purple. open and
Speak
of something
only You would know.
The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse: “Vignette”
By Ariel Cheng, IV Form
The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse: “Vignette”
Editor’s Note: The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse is given in memory of a member of the Class of 1907 and is awarded to one student, who, in the judgment of the English Department, has submitted the outstanding verse during the past year.
Vignette
Sand
washing you down (washing
you out) wearing you
like a necklace. I try to lace
rope, a net, a knot
your fingers, twisted. Twisting.
Laughing. A broken fan, cards everywhere,
soap opera murmuring.
In a room with peeling walls
we were honest.
The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse: “blue break of dawn”
By Sophie Chiang, V Form
The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse: “blue break of dawn”
The William Otis Smith Prize for English Verse is given in memory of a member of the Class of 1907 and is awarded to one student, who, in the judgment of the English Department, has submitted the outstanding verse during the past year.
“blue break of dawn”
no one ever crosses the cracked crosswalks
in the blue break of dawn. your mind flickers
into a sea-bloom of blue lights and credit cards,
of white powder and rolled-up dollar bills. you’ve
never been too cautious, these mannequins seem
to hold a gaze so intense it’s like you’re 17 and
speeding past red & blue flashes all over again.
you cry out and pick at your scalp, the one thing
holding together everything you’re made of,
the one thing you’ve ever been terrified to grasp.
there’s not much room to hold your new life next to
your mother’s faltering punch and your father’s
drunken breath. you wonder if this is universal. you
wonder if this is where it starts for people like you. you
wonder if that’s why when it matters, no one ever
crosses the concrete where you come from.
A Response to Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”
By Sophie Chiang, IV Form
A Response to Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb”
Editor’s Note: IV Form students in Ms. Lauren Kelly’s Survey of Literary Genres course were asked to craft a poem in response to Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb.”
“We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but
whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free” (Amanda Gorman).
Make America great again,
They chant ominously.
A sea of red-hatted zombies,
Brainwashed and hijacked by this view
Of a beautiful country.
“Go back to Chyyna!” he sneers,
Teeth bared and mocking.
What he doesn’t know that in China,
The people call America “mei guo”,
meaning beautiful country.
How could it be that this land
Is beautiful?
Where first graders hide under decaying desks
And in dirty bathrooms
To live past the gunshots?
Is it really beautiful,
When people who possess skin
That is too dark to be worthy,
Face brutality and discrimination,
Terrorization and demonization?
We will not make America great again,
In all honesty,
it never was.
We will not march back to what it once was,
But move on to what it will be,
United and free,
Compassionate and loving,
Bold and brave,
Fulfilling the prophecy of “mei guo”,
A beautiful country.
La Plage: A French Poem
By Abby Griffin, V Form
La Plage: A French Poem
Instructor Note from Dr. Downing Kress: As a class we read “Le Pont Mirabeau” by Guillaume Apollinaire. In this poem, the poet visits the Mirabeau bridge in Paris and, as he watches the Seine river flow by underneath the bridge, he is reminded of the passage of time and reflects on a love that is no more. I then asked the students to write their own poem about a special place that is significant to them – one that evokes emotion, memory, sensations, etc. Abby decided to write her poem about the beach in the form of a “calligramme,” a form of poetry often used by Apollinaire. The shape/spatial arrangement made by the poem’s text reflects the subject of the poem and plays a role in its meaning.
El Cambio Climático no Existe: Poetry as Protest in Advanced Spanish
By Grace Li and Rebecca Wu, V Form
El Cambio Climático no Existe: Poetry as Protest in Advanced Spanish
Assignment Note: In Advanced Spanish Language and Culture, students learned about using art and music as a form of protest. As an assignment, they were tasked with creating a piece of art that reflected their thoughts about an issue in society. The poem is about the importance of speaking out for climate change. It describes what is going on right now and what students could be doing to use their voices to make a positive impact in the world.
El Cambio Climático no Existe
“El cambio climático no existe”
Una afirmación de Trump que es muy triste
El gobierno no ha hecho nada
Por lo tanto la gente está enojada
La falta de progreso
Crea mucho descontento
Y hay muchas protestas
porque no hay otros planetas
Which Woman is the Wicked Witch? Atwood’s Feminist Revision of Witch Hangings
By Catie Summers, V Form
Which Woman is the Wicked Witch? Atwood’s Feminist Revision of Witch Hangings
The inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s poem “Half-Hanged Mary” was drawn from Atwood’s ancestor Mary Webster. Yet, Atwood’s eerie portrayal of a seventeenth-century woman’s battle with death, inner demons, and societal norms is written with a punch of feminist revision. Throughout Atwood’s poem, “Half-Hanged Mary,” particularly in the third and fourth stanzas, the foundation of a true, yet uncanny, occurrence is laced with a feminist revision of the history in question: that of witch-hunting in the seventeenth-century America.
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Dodge Poetry Festival Reflection: She Felt (x-Prosaic-x) Poetic
By Anuoluwa Akibu, V Form
Dodge Poetry Festival Reflection: She Felt Prosaic Poetic
On October 18, 2018, she came in wanting to improve her poetry. She felt prosaic. However, to her surprise, she entered a world far more different than she envisioned, a world of discussion rather than lecture, of insight rather than instruction. Instead of organized workshops to scrutinize her work in, she was given a program complete with introductory statements of the poets and a schedule of the events, the venues in which they were held, and the attending poets and the freedom to choose what she attended.
Prior to the Dodge Poetry Festival, she simply felt uncomfortable with her poetry, as she could not identify her voice in it. She forced strange words on a paper for outward validation and ignored her internal articulation. Her so-called “self-expression” was, in truth, silencing her. This was weird for her because creative writing has always been one of her passions, yet she was creating barriers between it and herself.
Of course, her voice was not entirely lost, but the Dodge Poetry Festival was an opening to an overcoming of this feeling of mediocrity, and she wasn’t disappointed. (more…)
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