I heard a word today I'd never heard before-
I wondered where it had been all my life.
I welcomed it, wooed it with my pen,
let it know it was loved.
THey say if you use a word three times, it's yours.
What happens to ones that no one speaks?
Do you wait bitterly,
hollow-eyed orphans in Dickensian bedrooms,
longing for someone to say,
"yes, you... you're the one"?
Or do they wait patiently, shy shadows
at the high school dance,
knowing that, given the slightest chance,
someday they'll bloom?
I want to make room for all of them,
to be the Ellis Island of dictation-
give me your tired, your poor,
your gegenshein, your zoanthropy-
all those words without a home,
come out and play- live in my poem.
-Donna Vorrey
Just glancing at the title I immediatly think of flowers draped across a wall, but after reading the poem I realize that its not talking about flowers, but it is in fact talking about words. There are so many words out there, some words that you might not even know existed till you hear them like loquacious or even zoanthropy and gegenshein. Later in the poem it compares words to people at a high school dance. How many people will act like wallflowers (must of been where the title came from) and patiently wait to be picked next. This poem is very descriptive. Pictures will appear as I read this poem I can see the kids waiting in the shadows at the school dance and the hollow-eyed orphans who long for someone to want them. Its a deep poem of comparisons of words and people who desperatly want to be picked.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
My own personal poem about high school
High school is a journey
full of choices.
You could go left
or you could go right,
either way the choice
is yours
and yours alone.
There comes a time
when you will decide
whats best for you.
You will leave behind
childish things.
As you grow into
this person.
A person you didn't
know existed.
You will learn that
the choices you made,
made you who you
are, Today.
full of choices.
You could go left
or you could go right,
either way the choice
is yours
and yours alone.
There comes a time
when you will decide
whats best for you.
You will leave behind
childish things.
As you grow into
this person.
A person you didn't
know existed.
You will learn that
the choices you made,
made you who you
are, Today.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Halo That Would Not Light
When after many years, the raptor beak
Let loose of you,
He dropped your tiny body
In the scarab-colored hollow
Of a carriage, left you like a finch
Wrapped in its nest of linens wound
With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box.
Tonight the wind is hover-
Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back
And forth with no one in them
As certian and invisible as
Red scarves silking endlessly
From a magician's hollow hat
And the spectacular castastrophe
Of your endless childhood
Is done
-Lucie Brock-Broido
When reading this poem I started thinking about all the people that I know who have died young, Trevor, Mark and my almost Cousin Emma. All of these people had their whole lives ahead of them but by some taste of fate their lives ended. Trevor went when he was a senior, Mark when he was a Junior and Emma, before she was born. Emma never even got a breath of air before her time was done. So this poem could be talking about her, for her halo did not light. She never got a chance. This poem was super powerful to me. It ment so much more to me because of Emma. It makes me very thankful for what I have and makes me really value everything because after all no one know how much time we have or when our time will come so we should enjoy it while we can. And so I will end this particular blog with a personal quote of mine that I think will end up being my senior quote,
Life is too short to be anything but happy so
Live life to the fullest
Laugh until your belly hurts and
Love always!
Let loose of you,
He dropped your tiny body
In the scarab-colored hollow
Of a carriage, left you like a finch
Wrapped in its nest of linens wound
With linden leaves in a child's cardboard box.
Tonight the wind is hover-
Hunting as the leather seats of swings go back
And forth with no one in them
As certian and invisible as
Red scarves silking endlessly
From a magician's hollow hat
And the spectacular castastrophe
Of your endless childhood
Is done
-Lucie Brock-Broido
When reading this poem I started thinking about all the people that I know who have died young, Trevor, Mark and my almost Cousin Emma. All of these people had their whole lives ahead of them but by some taste of fate their lives ended. Trevor went when he was a senior, Mark when he was a Junior and Emma, before she was born. Emma never even got a breath of air before her time was done. So this poem could be talking about her, for her halo did not light. She never got a chance. This poem was super powerful to me. It ment so much more to me because of Emma. It makes me very thankful for what I have and makes me really value everything because after all no one know how much time we have or when our time will come so we should enjoy it while we can. And so I will end this particular blog with a personal quote of mine that I think will end up being my senior quote,
Life is too short to be anything but happy so
Live life to the fullest
Laugh until your belly hurts and
Love always!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Stilll Memory
The dream was so deep
the bed came unroped from its moorings
drifted upstream dtill it found my old notch
in the house I grew up in,
then it locked in place.
A light in the hall-
my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of crude oil and solvent.
In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot
unleashes coffee's smoky odor.
Outside, the mimosa fronds, closed all night,
open their narrow valleys for dew.
Around us, the town is just growing animate,
its pulleys and levers set in motion.
My house starts to throb in its old socket.
My twelve-year old sister steps fast
because the bathroom tiles
are cold and we have no heat other
than what our bodies can carry.
My parents are not yet born each
into a small urn of ash.
My ten -year old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit.
I had to read this poem several times for me to bettter understand it. Reading it outloud to my self also helped me to better connect to it. This poem is very reflective. I think that it is reflecting on the authors childhood and specific moments that she remembers most. Possibly specific moments that happened regulary.
The description of this poem is very vivid. Helps to paint a picture in my mind. I can see her sister stepping fast over the bathroom tiles and her dad coming home from work so tired that he appears dead. This poem is a story that the poet wants to tell to others. To explain her family to others.
The poem also uses personification "My house starts to throb in its old socket." It would be quite funny to see a house throb like a human. I believe that if I continue to read this poem over and over again I will find more and more meaning in it because after all it could mean something to someone else when they read it. It all depends on the way you look at it.
the bed came unroped from its moorings
drifted upstream dtill it found my old notch
in the house I grew up in,
then it locked in place.
A light in the hall-
my father in the doorway, not dead,
just home from the graveyard shift
smelling of crude oil and solvent.
In the kitchen, Mother rummages through silver
while the boiled water poured
in the battered old drip pot
unleashes coffee's smoky odor.
Outside, the mimosa fronds, closed all night,
open their narrow valleys for dew.
Around us, the town is just growing animate,
its pulleys and levers set in motion.
My house starts to throb in its old socket.
My twelve-year old sister steps fast
because the bathroom tiles
are cold and we have no heat other
than what our bodies can carry.
My parents are not yet born each
into a small urn of ash.
My ten -year old hand reaches
for a pen to record it all
as would become long habit.
I had to read this poem several times for me to bettter understand it. Reading it outloud to my self also helped me to better connect to it. This poem is very reflective. I think that it is reflecting on the authors childhood and specific moments that she remembers most. Possibly specific moments that happened regulary.
The description of this poem is very vivid. Helps to paint a picture in my mind. I can see her sister stepping fast over the bathroom tiles and her dad coming home from work so tired that he appears dead. This poem is a story that the poet wants to tell to others. To explain her family to others.
The poem also uses personification "My house starts to throb in its old socket." It would be quite funny to see a house throb like a human. I believe that if I continue to read this poem over and over again I will find more and more meaning in it because after all it could mean something to someone else when they read it. It all depends on the way you look at it.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Beginning Again
"If I could stop talking completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get welll," he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God-
And still
it stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather
Why?
So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
-Franz Wright
When I first read this poem I laughed at the part that says, "Off alone again performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror." That part made me laugh because I remember reading a book a few days ago where this crazy scientist was trying to find the cure to save his people from dying from a terrible disease and he cut out part of his brain because for whatever reason he thought that cutting out his brain would help, but it in fact made him more crazy and funny.
On a more serious note, after reading this poem several times I realized that this poem is very self-reflective of the poet itself. The part "And still it stands, the question not how begin again, but rather why?" While reading this I thought about how impacting this one part is. Most people focus on how to begin instead of why they should begin again. I think that thinking about why a person should begin again is more important of the two because the way a person begins again will start a chain reaction which will in turn affect everyone around that one person. Now we should ask ourselves not how we should begin again but why we should begin again.
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get welll," he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God-
And still
it stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather
Why?
So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
-Franz Wright
When I first read this poem I laughed at the part that says, "Off alone again performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror." That part made me laugh because I remember reading a book a few days ago where this crazy scientist was trying to find the cure to save his people from dying from a terrible disease and he cut out part of his brain because for whatever reason he thought that cutting out his brain would help, but it in fact made him more crazy and funny.
On a more serious note, after reading this poem several times I realized that this poem is very self-reflective of the poet itself. The part "And still it stands, the question not how begin again, but rather why?" While reading this I thought about how impacting this one part is. Most people focus on how to begin instead of why they should begin again. I think that thinking about why a person should begin again is more important of the two because the way a person begins again will start a chain reaction which will in turn affect everyone around that one person. Now we should ask ourselves not how we should begin again but why we should begin again.
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