59 School poems

The word itself: prim, retired, its artifact her portrait above the fireplace, on her face the boredom she abhorred, then perfected, her hands held upward—their emptiness a revision, cigarette and brandy snifter painted, intolerably, out, to leave her this lesser gesture:What next? or shrugged Whatever. From the waist down she was never there.

(a found poem, composed entirely of e-mails from various high school students) If I were to ask you a question about your book and sum it up into one word it would be,Why? I think I like Walt Whitman better than you. I just don't get literature, but for a fast hour and a half read, your book takes the cake. I like how you organized the lines in that one poem to represent a growing twisting bonsai tree. Are you going to get a rude reaction when you meet that one guy in that one poem? I guess you never know. You are very young to be a poet. I also like how your poems take up an entire page (it makes our reading assignment go faster). In class we spend so much time dissecting your poems and then deeply analyzing them. I think I like Walt Whitman better than you, but don’t take offense—you are very good too! You are young, You are young and pure and really just want to have a good time. Thank you we have taken a debate and you are a far better poet than Walt Whitman. And I loved how your poems were easy to read and understand. Hello my name is Alicia. We read you book and I just loved it. We also read Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. There was no competition there. I liked your book a whole lot better. It was an easy read. But poetry is not my favorite type of literature. Sometimes I am offered drinks and guys try to talk to me but I too just brush it off and keep dancing. Every once and a while the creepy mean guys try to offer you things and then they say something. What would you do? Lastly, I was wondering if you ever wrote a poem that really didn’t have a deeper meaning but everyone still tried to give it one anyways? Walt Whitman is better than you.

It seems insane now, but she’d be standing soaked in schoolday morning light, her loose-leaf notebook, flickering at the bus stop, and we almost trembled at the thought of her mouth filled for a moment with both of our short names. I don’t know what we saw when we saw her face, but at fifteen there’s so much left to believe in, that a girl with sunset in her eyes, with a kind smile, and a bright blue miniskirt softly shading her bare thighs     really could be The Goddess. Even the gloss on her lips sighed Kiss me    and you’ll never do homework again. Some Saturdays my ace, Terry, would say, “Guess who was buying Teaberry gum in the drugstore on Stenton?” And I could see the sweet epiphany still stunning his eyes and I knew that he knew that I knew he knew     I knew— especially once summer had come, and the sun stayed up till we had nothing else to do but wish and wonder about fine sistas in flimsy culottes and those hotpants! James Brown screamed about: Crystal Berry, Diane Ramsey, Kim Graves, and her. This was around 1970: Vietnam to the left of us, Black Muslims to the right, big afros all over my Philadelphia. We had no idea where we were, how much history had come before us—how much cruelty, how much more dying was on the way. For me and Terry, it was a time when everything said maybe, and maybe being blinded by the beauty of a tenth grader was proof that, for a little while, we were safe from the teeth that keep chewing up the world. I’d like to commend my parents    for keeping calm, for not quitting their jobs or grabbing guns    and for never letting up about the amazing “so many doors open to good students.” I wish I had kissed Delores Jepps. I wish I could have some small memory of her warm and spicy mouth to wrap these hungry words around. I would like to have danced with her, to have slow-cooked to a slow song in her sleek, toffee arms: her body balanced between the Temptations’ five voices and me—a boy anointed with puberty, a kid with a B average and a cool best friend. I don’t think I’ve ever understood how lonely I am, but I was closer to it at fifteen because I didn’t know anything: my heart so near the surface of my skin I could have moved it with my hand.

Describe yourself in 250 words be authentic but also impressive show your growth but also your passion also be concise i've written it fourteen times each one sounds like someone performing being me

The most useful thing i learned in school was how to learn things not in a class from a teacher just: find the thing read the thing try the thing

prom is supposed to be everything and it's mostly just a dress and pictures and waiting for something to happen something happened i didn't love it i don't know what i expected

The school project is really the parent's project everyone knows this everyone pretends otherwise i made a nice volcano

My gpa determines my future according to everyone i calculate it in my head while walking to class like it's a number i can fix by thinking about it harder

there's a whole science to where you sit i've studied it for three years i still don't understand all of it i sit with the same two people who also don't understand it we're okay