High School Poetry Post Archive

Spring 2021 High School Poetry Posts

Untitled

Lilacs drooped outside the open window,
almost brushing the starched white curtains.
The heady scent of blossoms and sun;
dizzy delirium.
We sipped white wine from paper cups
when your mother was out.
You wore silver rings on your fingers,
slender as birds,
and your hair was ruffled and bright
like the clouds we watched
from the hilltop.
I saw pale dragons and lacy dresses
and carriages of light.
You saw the blue space between.
You always did.
-By Jemila Spain, Age 17, Lane County, Oregon

PARTNER POEM

After the Winter

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
   And against the morning's white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
   Have sheltered for the night,
We'll turn our faces southward, love,
   Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire the shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill
   Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed bluebells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.
—Claude McKay

ASK THE POEMS
1. Why do you let the seasons chase you?
2. How do flowers know where they are?
3. What can we do to see each other’s visions?
4. Is there ever an always or a never?
5. Can we carry refuge with us?

What would you do?
If I told you who I was?
If I told you my secret identity?
Would you run?
I have to keep it a secret.
Because I don’t want anyone to
know who I truly am.
Why can’t I be the real me?
Hiding under a thousand masks,
What else would you ask?
If you knew who I am
You would have already run.
Under all the pressure,
To be so perfect.
At least it’s a nice gesture.
If I took off the masks
There would only be a hundred more.
So don’t try to open that door.
Will you say you love me?
If I were to show you what I am? Will you believe me?
If I were to tell you who I am?

-By Ashlie Ortiz
High School Student, Lane County Oregon

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

—Paul Laurence Dunbar

ASK THE POEMS: Identity and We Wear the Mask

1. Where are the people who don’t wear masks?
2. How old were you when you first put the mask on?
3. Does your inner self wear a mask to speak with you?
4. What if there is no real face underneath?
5. Can masks keep you warm and safe?

Fall 2011 Poetry Posts

Opals and Sage

Deep in the red-lit canyon
Pillowed clouds and rough, grey grass
Arms wide, a bird’s easy dance
Wind and the open window
The gardener is growing opals and a basket full of sage
Dusty red rock, apples and sage
Brown owl lifts above the sandy canyon
A knotted old oak, growing opals
Silk sky and singing grass
Piano laughter, lifting out the window
Afternoon flight, wildflower’s dance

--By Phoebe Sheldon Young
12th Grade, Lane County, Oregon

PARTNER POEM

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

—By Wendell Berry

ASK THE POEMS: Opals and Sage and The Wild Geese

1. Who else will fly?
2. What will you harvest when the sun goes south for winter?
3. What goes on under the surface of the earth that such things grow there?
4. What hides in the marrow of opal seeds?
5. Where else will windows and skies open to?

Spring 2011 Poetry Posts

Ocean Sestina

The crusty crab
gathers threads of mist
grains of gold and amber sand
to weave a blanket
so Grandfather Time
can sleep.

The ocean never sleeps
and the tireless crab
has no concept of time
running out, fleeting as mist
like a thin blanket
of sand

through an hourglass. Sand
is more precious than sleep
an offering for the blanket
of waves, all the humble crab
can give. One moment in time.

--Jemila Spain, Grade 10, Lane County, Oregon

Peace flows into me
    As the tide to the pool by the shore;
    It is mine forevermore,
It will not ebb like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
     That worships the vivid sky;
     My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
     When sunset burns and dies—
     You are my deepening skies;
Give me your stars to hold.

--Sara Teasdale

ASK THE POEMS: Ocean Sestina and Peace

1. How can time be still when it is running out?
2. What does the sea change?
3. What rides on the skin that separates sea from sky?
4. How can you rest when the waves go in and out, and the tide goes in and out?
5. How long is a moment?

Winter 2010 Poetry Posts

The Letter

“Père Noël”
Garnishes the single page
Caught in the small sleeping fist

Cradled in a hammock
Of tinsel ribbon bauble brightness
The dozing child
Smells reindeer breath

Just hours before
Impish Claus had paused over the letter
Ink still wet
And considered this young personage
Who
On the shores of another land
Was dutifully eating green beans

Prompted by a reindeer grumble
Père Noël had tucked the note
Into the fleece pocket
Under the shine of his belt
And ambled past
The polished painted palace warmth
Of his workshop
Into the deep Finnish winter

He roosted on a clutch of gifts
As he sailed the skies
Swooping down chimneys
Then lingering at a hearthside
To nestle the letter among the fragrant needles
Of an evergreen

It was there the child had found it
And tipped the words
From page to mouth
Where they floated
Into the child’s stomach
More satisfying than milk and cookies
To feed the child’s dreams

--Zoë Livelybrooks, Age 17, Lane County, Oregon

PARTNER POEM

The Secret

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.

--Denise Levertov

ASK THE POEMS: The Letter and The Secret
1. What other forms can word magic take?
2. What other paths can words travel into us?
3. What does poetry taste like?
4. Where can we keep secrets so we don't lose them again?
5. How do we send secret gifts to others?

Don’t turn
The stone walls are weeping and the flowers I wore have all wilted
Look ahead and the world grows light
Do not turn
Were I not formless, I would reach out to touch your singing mouth
Please trust, do not turn
I am with you, love, though now I’m hidden and dark
Don’t turn, only sing
My dancing will be in the shadows and my footsteps the soft, blue
echoes of your own
Sing, do not turn
And we’ll meet in the honey-warm world of light once more

Leave-taking

I do not know where either of us can turn
Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.
I do not know how we can bear
The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,
Or many trees shaken together in the darkness.
We shall wish not to be alone
And that love were not dispersed and set free—
Though you defeat me,
And I be heavy upon you.

But like earth heaped over the heart
Is love grown perfect.
Like a shell over the beat of life
Is love perfect to the last.
So let it be the same
Whether we turn to the dark or to the kiss of another;
Let us know this for leavetaking,
That I may not be heavy upon you,
That you may blind me no more.

-- By Louise Bogan, originally published in Poetry, August 1922

ASK THE POEMS: “Eurydice and Orpheus” and “Leave-taking”

1. Must every turn be tragic?
2. Where is it safe to be together?
3. What other gifts can you give each other?
4. Who keeps the memories?
5. Where will you go next?

I am from fir trees and waterfalls,
weekend hikes and road trips.
I am from biscuits and gravy, bonfires and
“Come get your red hots!”
I am homemade fries and chocolate sauce, too.
I am from hard work, and dedication,
Laughing fits with my sister and
“I can draw a dog face on the computer”
I can count to 100 the fast way.
I am from sing songs and Chinese cuts.
I am from green, green lawns and macaroni.
I am a tetherball swinging in circles on the playground.
I am horse falls and lemonade stands.
I am from being driven to school each day.
I am from “no dresses” and “no jeans.”
I am from running through the sprinkler, picking bouquets and
babysitting the neighbor kids.
I am lost and
many doors are open.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

--William Stafford, 1993

ASK THE POEMS “Untitled” and “You Reading This, Be Ready”

1. When you turn around, what is the new thing you see?
2. What is the taste in your mouth right now?
3. When the future reaches for you, will you take its hand?
4. Where will your foot fall next?
5. What do you see with your eyes shut?

The gentle rhythm of rain strums our paneled roof
as I help my mother in the bright kitchen
kneel on a cushioned chair
in front of silver bowls
scattering sugar like a fine white snow
over ridges and canyons of moist flour.
I mold the scene with a fat wooden spoon
mapping the geography of my world

like when I burrow in my parents' huge bed
tunnel under layered sheets and flannel comforter
imitating the mole rats I saw once at the zoo
pink and wrinkled, burrowing into the warm darkness
of the familiar.
I emerge, poke my head into fresh light
bundle of blankets and laughter.

In the evening, when the last traces of cookie
have been scrubbed from my teeth
I sit folded in the scent of my mother’s lavender soap
And crisp pages
studying the soft pastel drawings and blocky letters
I am just beginning to understand
until my eyes slip closed and I drift
lulled by words and the quiet breath of rain.

Jemila Spain, Lane County, Grade 10, Age 15

PARTNER POEM

The Game

Outside my window an English spring was
summoning home its birds and a week-long fog
was tattering into wisps and rags and at last
I could see the railings when I looked out.

I was a child in a north-facing bedroom in
a strange country. I lay awake listening to
quarreling and taffeta creaking and the clattering
of queens and aces on the inlaid card table.

I played a game: I hid my face in the pillow
and put my arms around it until they thickened.
Then I was following the thaw northward and the air
was blond with frost and sunshine and below me

was only water and the shadow of flight in it
and the shape of wings under it, and in the hours
before morning I would be drawn down and drawn
down and there would be no ground under me

and no safe landing in the dawn breaking on
a room with sharp corners and surfaces on which
the red-jacketed and cruel-eyed fractions of chance
lay scattered where the players had abandoned them.

Later on I would get up and go to school in
the scalded light which fog leaves behind it;
and pray for the King in chapel and feel dumbly for
the archangels trapped in their granite hosannas.

--by Eavan Boland

QUESTIONS FOR THE POEMS:

1. What does the weather's music say to the person you are now?

2. What other dreams found homes under the covers?

3. How often does the house turn transparent and let the weather in?

4. What happens during the pieces of day you have left out?

5. Can you speak the languages of sounds other than language?

Fall 2009 Poetry Posts

After Harvest

The farmer rocked in his chair
his eyelids drifting down
He barely saw through the lenses of
his glasses now
As he grew ever more weary
the intricate rope of stars
blurred into a milky river of dreams
and hopes and wishes
The blanket of darkness did not
suffocate him
The air swarmed with secrecy and possibilities
His breath formed in translucent white blossoms
Rain started to sprinkle out of the sky
salting the earth -- the rich aesthetic feast
of the heavens above
He dropped the hammer on the porch ground below and
let his fingers subconsciously brush the grain of the chair
as the darkness of sleep clouded his sight

--Jocelyn Wensel, Age 14, Oregon

PARTNER POEM

November 1968

Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials

You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin

How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind

--Adrienne Rich

ASK THE POEMS: After Harvest and November 1968

1. What will the spring bring you?
2. How do you bring the sky inside of you, and what do you do with it?
3. How are your lives interlaced with trees?
4. What do you grasp when you let go of what you have or are?
5. What do you breathe in?

Planting Memories

I don’t remember, but I do.
How can one truth not be true?
Apparently, my memories have lied.
Apparently, the silence keeps me dry.
So I recount what I keep–
Every new memory before I sleep.
I work to fill an undone book.
So tomorrow I can see what I undertook.
And every morning I reread
Each little planted seed.
–-Jana Barnes, Age 17, Lane County, Oregon

These are the days when Birds come back

These are the days when Birds come back–
A very few–a Bird or two–
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old–old sophistries of June–
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee–
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear–
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze–
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake–
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

–-Emily Dickinson, c. 1859

ASK THE POEMS
1. What are you showing me about the nature of memory?
2. What can be renewed from a season that has passed?
3. How are your speakers witnesses of change?
4. How does the past still seem alive?
5. What can be kept in the rereading of a story? What can be transformed in that rereading?

High School Poetry Post Archive

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