Original Poems I

MUNDANE 


Dust Bunnies 

Big round puff balls 

floating freely
As you step past them they catch even the slightest wind from you and fly,
Fly away

Dust Bunnies come in all shapes 
They come in all sizes
Some are created from dust and dirt
But some are formed from more elegant things, like the strings from you mothers cashmere sweater 

Although the dust bunnies live so freely 
So carefree, so happily 
They always end up in the same place...
The garbage 


Once in a while a dust bunny will get lucky  
They will not be disturbed and will find a quiet place to stay 
A place ware they won't get bothered with vacuums and brooms 
And they can stay there peacefully and still, carefree 






Concrete Poem 
A Bit to Fit 

             A bit is hard to fit                                                                  A bit is hard to fit
            why                               you                                                                             some                                  of
         may                                       ask                            bit                                       them                                      need
     and                                              I'll      Is different and has a unique mouth      easy                                                  bits
         tell                                       you                               bit                                  and                                            others
          that                                      it's                                                                       need                                        hard
               very                          hard                                                                            harsher                              ones
                    because each horse                                                                                           a snaffle bit is my favorite

PANTOUM

The Field

Looking at the open fields
I finally feel free 
I feel that if I wanted to run I could 
Just keep running and running forever

I finally feel free 
Standing in the open field
Just keep running and running forever
I will go right into the sunset ahead

Standing in the open field
I feel that if I keep walking 
I will go right into the sunset ahead 
And never be bothered to come back again 

Looking at the open fields
I feel that if I keep walking
And never be bothered to come back again
I feel that if I wanted to run I could

 

What I Need to Know about WRITING AND WRITERS to Become a Better Writer

I would like to explore more bout the publishing parts of writing. Even though the speakers talked a little about publishing, that didn't anwser all of my questions and it made me wonder even more about the publishing process. I want to understand how to get something published in newspapers or magazines or even a whole book published. I think that this will make me a better writer because I will know what the publishers are looking for. I think that knowing this information will help me and other kids get more inspired to write. Also knowing about how things get published has always been a real intrest of mine. I have always wondered the exact details about what happens. If this was my topic for my documentary I think that it would benefit both me and my classmates.




1/17 Speaker=*****

Round Four: Marni Gillard

After I read the story "High Dive", there was one thing that got my attention at the very beginning, and that was the foreshadowing. I liked how they had her on the diving board about to jump and then re-winded back to earlier that day.  It let me know what was going to happen and it got me interested and kept me reading. I also liked how Marni used the "swan" lesson in her story. It helped me imagine her brother, Jimmy, in my head as I was reading this, trying to give her advice on how do do a high dive. Another reason why I liked why she brought  up the "swan" lesson was because I wasn't quite sure what a high dive was, but when the "swan" was brought into the story it helped me understand what she was talking about and trying to do.
In the "Journey Chapter" I think that how she includes her past story telling experiences works best in this. It helps you understand a little better about what she is trying to say. It is hard to decide what to cut out of this because there is so much important information in it. She really teaches you how to develop a oral story and tells you how her stories have changed and improved over time. I also liked how she included her audiences reaction to the story and how that effects how she tells it. It was interesting to read about how each class she talked to liked something different, One class really like the "four andthreequarters" and another class really liked the "life guard with BIG muscles". If I really had to cut something out of this I would shorten up the "Reliving and Recording the Tale " section. I feel like that section sort of drags on and I kept losing my focus on it. Specifically the little details that seem unnecessary. This has so many details to begin with, it seems to over do the details a little to much. The part about her talking to Doug and reliving the fall was really good and interesting, but I don't think that she would need anymore that just that in this section.

Round THREE =Mary Moriarty

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop:
This poem is about learning how to lose. In these types of poems you repeat a line in the 1st, 6th, and 18th line. The line "the art of losing isn’t hard to master" was repeated in this poem. The last word should be repeated in the 3rd, 9th, and 19th line. The word "disaster" was repeated in the end of those lines in this poem. The rhyme scheme in this poem is abaabaabaa... until the last line. There is 19 lines in this type of poem.
Good planets are hard to replace by Morgan Kehn
Good planets are hard to replace
Can't you see that
It's time to pick up the pace

We have no where else to go, we can't go to space!
All this time we have been acting fat
Good planets are hard to replace

We have become addicted to our cars to bring us place to place
It's time to pick up the slack

We need to hurry up and get with the pace

We need to go back and reface
The reality, we know for a fact
It's time to step up to the base

It's our time to step up to the base 
It's our time to take the bat
We all need to work together because Earth is all of our birthplace

We will sprint into this race
 This is no time to get scared and scat
Good planets are hard to replace
Oh yes, we will come in first place

The Back Seat of my Mothers Car by Julia Copus:
This poem is very interesting. Its almost hard to figure out what its about. I had to read it several times to figure it out, and I'm still not to sure what it is about. I think its about a daughter being taken away from her father by her mother. The format of this poem is one that I have never seen before. The poem is written once, and then repeated again but backwards. The first line of the poem is "We left before I had time" and the last line of the first stanza is "with the cool slick glass between us", but that line is also the first line of the second stanza. Sense the poem is repeated again backwards  for the second stanza, the last line of the poem is "we left before I had time."

I thought that the poems roaming with my father, I go back to may 1937, and track photo were very good poems. I think that these poems were all a lot easier to read and understand then the other poems I have mentioned in this blog post. Roaming with my father was clearly about the "sundays in summer" that Mimi and her mom and dad went "roaming after church". I think that this poem is very relaxing to read. I go back to may 1937 was obviously about Sharon Olds thinking about talking to her parents back when they were " about to graduate, (and) they are about to get married." She wanted to tell them "stop, don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman, he’s the wrong man," but she wants "to live" so she just lets them continue. Lastly Fatherland was a little confusing but still manageable to read through without getting to confused. This is about Mimi going to "homecoming" and seeing all of the fathers waiting around. I thought all of these poems were very unique and interesting.

http://www.free-extras.com/search/1/swings.htm
 Swings
I spent most of my time on you when I was young
I laughed on you then cried when I fell
I remember pumping with my legs to get great height

I would runt to you with nothing to do
I would let you take me up to the top
I would let you take me to the sky

I miss those days of such simple pleasures
I wish things were still that simple
I will once again come to visit you old friends
I will come to you with boredom and you will give me the sky

1/10 Speaker =**** 4

Marilyn Kemp – Mystery Writer

Marilyn Kemp has been writing mysteries for quite a while. She has many books published and many books of hers have been awarded. She not only writes, but she also teaches classes for older people about writing and she also thought classes at  collages for writing. Marilyn is very dedicated to her work, she travels all over including "Northeast" to teach her courses and talk about writing.
From what I have read I think Marilyn Kemp has a very unique type of writing style that is hard to achieve. I think that she writes in a mature way, but still keeps the reader awake and interested in the book. Her plots for her books are very interesting and different, which is a reason why I think she is so successful. Her characters are one of a kind. She has " two nosy Puritans as detectives" and a "young minister with training to reveal the guilty secrets of the human soul."  Who could resist reading about characters like that? She has very catchy titles for her books which make you want to read the book as soon as you can. I would assume that her readers are old teens to adults. I wouldn't think that children would be reading "Dieing in a Winter Wonderland".

Questions:
-When did she start writing?
-What was the process that she had to take to get a book published?
-Does she enjoy teaching younger or older people more?

1/6 Speaker = ? (absent) 

Round one=Susan Cominos

Susan Cominos is a very accomplished poet. She won the Yehuda Halevi Poetry Competition in 2010. She also has won many other awards. Susan currently live in New York working as a freelance journalist.
Susan's poems are ecribed as some people as a "bit of a maze". I agree with that statement. Her poems are very interesting. From what I have read I sense that she likes to write about different religions or times of history. She wrote a poem called "Getting out of the Roman bath" that was truly baffling. Susan uses such creative words that it can get a little overwhelming to read. Also the detail that she puts into this poem is very interesting. When she writes "a girl who plans to hang mezuzahs by the bed, dangle instruments," you can almost imagine a young girl putting up a mezuzah above her bed. Her style of writing is very professional. She defiantly writes for adults, not children. I think that people appreciate her writing so much is because it is so rare. You don't read about a covet to be compared as "shalt fail to sway the sky," in a everyday newspaper. also you don't use the word covet to mean a desire or wish in your everyday speaking. I think that Susan likes you use unusual words in her writing. It makes you think and put the poems together more. Between the religious or historical content and the complex words that Susan uses in her poems your brain is working very hard by the end of her poems.

How does the outliers connect to MY life?

Although I thought The Outliers was a little dull, I must admit that the author, Malcolm Gladwell, made some excellent points in this book. He mentioned things that you wouldn't normally think about on your own. He brought new ideas to your mind and forced you to think in a different way. Some of the points he made seemed a little to mature. I felt like I couldn't truly understand some of the things he was talking about because I am young and have not experienced anything like it yet. Although I feel like if I read this book again when I am an adult, I will be able to relate to a lot more things in this book. Although I had a hard time relating to some of the points made in this book, there were some points that really caught my attention and I felt really did connect to my life.

One point this book was stressing about was a thing called the 10,000-hour rule. I thought that this rule connected to my life. The 10,000-hour rule is that researchers have decided that you need 10,000 hours to become a true expert at something. I believe that this connects to my life because I ride horses and when I thought about the 10,000 hour rule, I realized I'm just about half way to being an "expert" at riding. In the book on page 41, it says that it "seems to take about ten years...and what’s ten years? Well, it's roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice." When I took that into consideration I realized that it does make perfect sense that I am just about half way there to becoming an expert at riding, because like I said before I have been riding for four years. In my riding I hope to become an expert at jumping. So far I have begun jumping small cross rails and short courses. If I continue to keep on riding extra each week and continue to put in a lot of practice, in ten years I should be able to consider my self a "expert" at English riding and jumping. I know that I can't just sit on a horse for 10,000 hours and expect to jump a full course I need to work and practice hard. "The people at the very op don't just work harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder." (Page 39). So in ten years with 10,000 hours of hard practice I'm hoping to be able to call myself an expert at jumping six-foot jumps and full courses.

Another point in this book that I felt connects to my life is the point about how important IQ tests are.  "There is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ, except possibly his morals." That quote was taken from page 75, and I believe that many people agree with that. In my life I have experienced, multiple times, that not just with IQ tests, but just in tests in general, the people who do really well on them get treated differently then the people who don't do as well on them. In this book Henry Cowell was determined if he was intelligent by taking an IQ test. Terman thought, "This boy must be intelligent." (Page 73) and of course his 140 on that IQ test proved that he was almost a "genius." Terman decided to continue to follow Cowell and keep track of him. Cowell was one of those people who got that "special treatment" that I was talking about for doing well on a test. I have never been a good test taker, so I have not been one of the people who got the special treatment. I was the one who watched as the teachers talked to the kids who did well on the tests. I watched as they got complimented and a pat on the back. Even though I may have work just as hard or maybe even harder on preparing for the test, it all comes down to the test itself. If you think about it a lot of your intelligence is based on tests. In high school you need to take regents to see if you can pass the course, you need to take PSAT's and SAT's. Then when you go to collage you still need to take tests to see if you can pass a course and graduate. It doesn't stop there, there are even jobs out there that require you to take tests to see ware you are with your intelligence. The people who do best on these tests get moved to higher classes, get recommendation letters or can even get promoted in their job. I believe that, like this book states and as I said before, "There is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ."

One last point that this book mad that I thought connected to my life was the idea that it takes seven human errors to create a disaster.  un-dragged, hard arena dirt. I was lying on the ground for 15 minutes gasping for air because I got the wind knocked out of me. I was not able to move from the sharp pain from the bottom half of my back to my tailbone. I thought for sure I have broken something. My parents ended up needing to bring me to the doctors to get an x-ray, and while I was in the waiting room I was replaying my fall over and over in my head. I realized that it wasn't just one thing that had gone wrong, it was multiple things. I was tiered from the long trail ride I was just on, I was hungry, I wasn't very focused, I was very nervous, I misunderstood the directions, my reins were to long, and I leaned forward on my pony's withers instead of sinking down on her back. Count the amount of errors that happened to cause me to fall. Seven, just like the amount that the book said. Also the book said "These several errors, furthermore, are rarely problems of knowledge or flying skills." and then Gladwell continues to go on and say that "The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of team work and communication." (Page 184) With that being said, I also realized that it is not that I am bad at riding or don't have the skills to ride properly. It's just that I wasn't working well with the pony and I didn't understand the directions that my instructor was telling me.

This book, The Outliers, is a very deep and thought provoking book. Even though I did not enjoy it very much, it still had some really fascinating points in it. I'm sure that this book can connect to many more adults because it is so deep and make you think so much. I am pretty sure that if I reread this book again when I am older I will enjoy it a lot more.  I must admit that the parts that I did understand really well and could connect to I really enjoyed.  Malcolm Gladwell defiantly has his own type of writing and his own interesting was of getting points across.