Personal poetry

Verlonna TenBrink 2nd hour October 2, 2015

PERSONAL POETRY

by Verlonna TenBrink

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Introduction

“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.”

― Gustave Flaubert

It is often said that poetry is the best form of writing, or that it’s the most emotional type, or that it can be intense and complex and strange and beautiful. All of these are true, but not everyone feels such thoughts.

Certain poem techniques pique some interests, other poem techniques pique other interests. I like many types of poetry, but short, rhyming, meaningful poems always get my attention. Simple, powerful poems

interest me also because I can relate to them, I can understand what the poet means immediately because I’ve often had the same thoughts as

they have. The reason poetry is so popular, meaningful, beautiful, refreshing, relatable and fun to write is because there is poetry in everything. You can find poetry in death, poetry in life. Poetry in

inanimate objects, poetry in living people. Poetry in dreams, poetry in nightmares. I’ve never had a chance to tap into these topics of poetry

because I wasn’t trained, I didn’t know what I was doing. Now, I see why so many enjoy stanza after stanza of Emily Dickinson, Henry W.

Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, and many other famous authors. My list is not the greatest poems written in history, but rather my personal poetry gathered into a small list of poems by me, famous authors, and people I

know. (237)

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Table of Contents

Poem Page

Introduction

The arrow and the song

Bury me in a free land

First Fig

I Killed a Spider With my Shoe

What time is it?

Remembering my dreams

Into the Ocean

Can You Sing a Song?

Dreams

’Hope is the thing with feathers’

Poetry sources

Photo Credits

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The Arrow and the Song William W. Longfellow

When I read this poem, I fell in love. I didn’t hesitate to memorize it because there was just something about it that made it so interesting. There is a perfect amount of lines in each of the three stanzas, the words fall off your tongue in a bouncy, fluent way and the rhymes at the end of each line really tie it together. It’s interesting to compare the flight of the arrow to the flight of the song because -as we know-, an arrow is physical and therefore visible but a song is invisible, only proving its existence by that of sound waves. Both fly, but in such different ways. (111)

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I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

Poem 1

Bury me in a Free Land by Frances E. W. Harper

I liked how Harper didn’t refrain from detailing some of the brutal treatment of slaves. Slavery is not something to be taken lightly or to laugh about and she really emphasized that. I always have a soft spot for people who have been mistreated and this poem really hit my core. If I had been a slave I would wish for the very same thing. It was not a made-up story that young girls really were sold for their youthful charms, and it makes a deep sadness grow inside me. Such a meaningful poem and it’s soaked in reality and truths. (101)

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…

I could not rest if around my grave

I heard the steps of a trembling slave;

His shadow above my silent tomb

Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

…

…

I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay

Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,

And I heard the captive plead in vain

As they bound afresh his galling chain.

If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms

Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,

My eye would flash with a mournful flame,

My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

…

I ask no monument, proud and high,

To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;

All that my yearning spirit craves,

Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

Poem 2

First fig by Edna ST. Vincent Millay

When I read this poem, the first thing I thought about was life and death. The flame of a candle always burns bright as long as it has a wick to follow and wax to burn, much like our lives. There is a point in time where we just cannot go any further, and our flame runs out. Sometimes it’s because the wax has been spent or the wick is too short, but sometimes accidents happen, and the light is blown out, leaving a trail of smoke to impact history. I think that the speaker in this poem knows her time is at an end, and she is not afraid or angry or resentful; she is happy that her light has shone bright for friends and family to see until the night comes and the flame is spent. (138)

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My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

Poem 3

I Killed a Spider With my Shoe by Verlonna TenBrink

Most everyone in their lives have killed a spider before. They’re creepy, unwanted, and gross at times, it’s a no wonder nobody cares for the small arachnids on the wall. I sympathize with this by really explaining the details of the spider itself. I kept to four lines per stanza with a good visual representation for the reader, and the first two lines explain its position in my house. Even though killing a spider is not usually thought of as a crime, I made sure to keep the viewpoint neutral. The creepy-crawler did nothing wrong and was therefore innocent, but at the same time it looked so menacing and dangerous that it was just all too necessary to kill. (119)

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There it is

on the wall

It’s legs long,

It’s rump plump

Staying there

on the wall

Eyes so beady

Silk like glue

It’s now moving

On the wall

Gotta kill it

With my shoe

Poem 4

What time is it? by Verlonna TenBrink

Ideas for poems always seem to come out of nowhere. I wrote this poem because I longed for recognition for my robotics team, but at the same time I wanted to test the clarity and meaning of my work. Whenever the clock strikes 1:07, our team (team R.O.B.O.T.I.C.S. Reaching Out and Building Others Together In Christ’s Service) yells the question: what time is it? And replies to ourselves that it’s 107, the number we are. Every stanza starts off with a question to keep the thoughts of the reader guessing the answer until it is revealed. However, it wasn’t always that way and I put it through eight draftings until I finally got the result I wanted and needed. (127)

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What time is it?

Shout it out loud.

Don’t move your mouth

with no sound coming out.

What time is it?

Most clocks are different,

but surely you can see.

AM, PM, it doesn’t matter to me

What time is it?

Don’t stray or it’ll be too late

Sit up straight, say it clear

It’s 1:07 over here

But why does it matter,

how does it matter?

If you were apart of the robotics team,

You would see what 107 means.

Poem 5

Remembering my Dreams by Verlonna TenBrink

The very first thing that caught my eye in a poem was the rhyme and repetition. When I had no idea what poetry was about, rhyming was what I thought to be the only aspect of a poem. In the piece that I wrote, I went back to those times of alliteration and focused on making every line flow with syllables and speed. Remembering the dreams I have every night is truly difficult to me, and I wanted to capture that struggle in a poem. I wanted the reader to understand and remember the feeling of forgetting a cool or wacky dream because we’ve all had that disappointing moment when we wish to recall an adventure had and not remember a single thing about it. (125)

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is not as easy as it seems

Every single time I sleep

I keep on counting many sheep

Also no dream comes to me

That will stay and simply be

A great thing for my memory

For when I wake, it’s history

and so I continue on my day

With no picture and no way

It’s not as easy as it seems


Poem 6

Into the Ocean by C.J.

I liked how the poet kept her piece short and to the point. It was more meaningful this way and it truly makes you think about those who have lost their lives due to self-harm, otherwise known as suicide. When I read the poem I imagined a depressed girl, no longer able to ride the roller coaster of life, sink into a morbid mindset: it was time to go. There are cliffs, there are sharp objects, there are overdoses, but this girl chose the ocean. She sat by the dock as if to contemplate the last meaning of life and decided that the sea was her only liberation, her only escape. Its sad to think that there have been people who have thought their lives meaningless and chose to drown. (130)

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She sat by the dock,

And whispered to the sea.

"Oh my dear ocean,

Please come and take me."

Poem 7

Can You Sing a Song? by Joseph Morris

This poem really reminds me of the average human’s life. Sure we all go through at least some of these hardships from time to time but for some people, stress and tiredness is all a part of the daily grind. Sometimes we just need to sing when we feel down, to sing when we feel like we’re not going to make it through the day, much like how we need to praise God for what he’s given us even in our hardships. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but the poet really reminds us to ask ourselves if we can sing a song when we feel sad, happy, weird, goofy, angry, shy, kind, etc. Can you sing a song? (118)

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Can you sing a song to greet the sun,

Can you cheerily tackle the work to be done,

Can you vision it finished when only begun,

Can you sing a song?

Can you sing a song when the day's half through,

When even the thought of the rest wearies you,

With so little done and so much to do,


Can you sing a song at the close of the day,

When weary and tired, the work's put away,

With the joy that it's done the best of the pay,


Poem 8

Dreams by Langston Hughes

I liked how Hughes used a few metaphors in the poem. Firstly, dreams are sometimes fragile, and anything harming could lead to a broken, fractured, cracked dream that will take awhile to glue back together, much like a broken wing on a bird. You cannot fly with a broken wing so you need to take the time to rest up and try again in the future. Secondly, dreams can leave you forever. Sometimes this can lead to bigger better dreams but other times it can leave you burnt out, nothing to do nowhere to go: a barren wasteland of a life. (101)

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Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Poem 9

’Hope is the thing with feathers’ by Emily Dickinson

“Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.” Those ending lines really stuck out to me because it’s true that hope keeps us going, we see examples of that all the time in our history books, in other places of the world, and maybe even in our own homes. But yet, we give nothing to hope in return. Hope is a powerful thing, It’s possible that the poet went through a hardship in her life that made her realize how much we as humans depend on hope to keep us going no matter what. Like penguins that huddle for warmth, hope is truly something with feathers, a bird that can keep us warm at night, and can cheer us up in the morning with soundless song. (128)

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Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Poem 10

Poetry sources The arrow and the song

page 6 of 101 Great American Poems

Bury me in a free land


I Killed a Spider With my Shoe

written by me

First Fig


What time is it?

written by me

Into the Ocean

written by C.J.


written by me

Can You Sing a Song?

http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/short-inspirational-poems.html

Dreams

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dreams-2/

‘Hope is the thing with feathers’


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Photo Credits

Arrow song (pg 4) - https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/19536

Angel (pg 5) - http://pixcooler.com/weeping+angel+png?image=57814376

Candle (pg 6) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-pritchard/burning-the-candle-at-bot_1_b_5955256.html

Spider (pg 7) - http://vi.sualize.us/sketchsepahi_gallery_slides_spider_drawing_picture_7Lps.html

The team (pg 8) - https://sites.google.com/site/firstrobotics107/

Dream (pg 9) - http://www.thepsychicwell.com/metaphysics/all-about-dreams/dream-themes/

Suicide (pg 10) - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/400609329324735941/

Sing the sun (pg 11) - http://www.listofimages.com/howling-wolves-at-sunset-birds-firefox-persona-mountain-sunset-trees-widescreen-wolves.html

Hold dreams (pg 12) - http://elgranevapora.blogspot.com/2013_12_01_archive.html

Hope (pg. 13) - http://indodiscovery.com/blog/

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