My Life
Joe WenderothSomehow it got into my room.
I found it, and it was, naturally, trapped.
It was nothing more than a frightened animal.Since then I raised it up.
I kept it for myself, kept it in my room,
I named the animal, My Life.
I found food for it and fed it with my bare hands.
I let it into my bed, let it breathe in my sleep.And the animal, in my love, my constant care,
grew up to be strong, and capable of many clever tricks.
One day, quite recently,
I was running my hand over the animal's side
and I came to understand
that it could very easily kill me.
I realized, further, that it would kill me.
This is why it exists, why I raised it.
Since then I have not known what to do.I stopped feeding it,
only to find that its growth
has nothing to do with food.
I stopped cleaning itand found that it cleans itself.
I stopped singing it to sleep
and found that it falls asleep faster without my song.
I don't know what to do.
I no longer make My Life do tricks.
I leave the animal alone
and, for now, it leaves me alone, too.
I have nothing to say, nothing to do.
Between My Life and me,
a silence is coming.
Together, we will not get through this.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
I thought that this poem was inspiring to me because it inspired me to stop worrying about my life and to just expect that there's more to life than what has already been labled.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I imagine an unknown creature that sticks to me like glue, an actual animal right beside me; like it needs to be cared for but realy doesn't.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"I no longer make My Life do tricks." & "Between My Life and me, a silence is coming."
2) Most Musical1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
I thought that this poem was inspiring to me because it inspired me to stop worrying about my life and to just expect that there's more to life than what has already been labled.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I imagine an unknown creature that sticks to me like glue, an actual animal right beside me; like it needs to be cared for but realy doesn't.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"I no longer make My Life do tricks." & "Between My Life and me, a silence is coming."
Stephen Dobyns
My stepdaughter and I circle round and round.
You see, I like the music loud, the speakers
throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether
Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so
each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut.
But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is fourYou see, I like the music loud, the speakers
throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether
Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so
each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut.
and likes the music decorous, pitched below
her own voice-that tenuous projection of self.With music blasting, she feels she disappears,
is lost within the blare, which in fact I like.
But at four what she wants is self-location
and uses her voice as a porpoise uses
its sonar: to find herself in all this space.
If she had a sort of box with a peephole
and looked inside, what she'd like to see would be
herself standing there in her red pants, jacket,
yellow plastic lunch box: a proper subject
for serious study. But me, if I raised
the same box to my eye, I would wish to find
the ocean on one of those days when wind
and thick cloud make the water gray and restless
as if some creature brooded underneath,
a rocky coast with a road along the shore
where someone like me was walking and has gone.
Loud music does this, it wipes out the ego,
leaving turbulent water and winding road,
a landscape stripped of people and language-
how clear the air becomes, how sharp the colors.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
To me this was most musical because when I read this poem I read it in a certain way, with a certain pattern.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I feel the passion of music described by the stepmother, the loudness vibrating in my ears the smacking on my guts; it is described very powerful.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"You see, I like the music loud, the speakers throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut." &
"Loud music does this, it wipes out the ego, leaving turbulent water and winding road, a landscape stripped of people and language-how clear the air becomes, how sharp the colors."
Football
Louis Jenkins
I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...
What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's
brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same
skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.
I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I
understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one
has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn
syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they
weren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man
downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,
one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not going
to throw it.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
I thought that this poem was very amusing in a humorous way because the author seems like they were joking around when they made this poem. You would think that he would choose to throw the brown oxford in the end after explaining that everyone has responsibilities and choices to make and yet he chooses not to throw it.
2.What did you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
I imagined the football player holding the brown oxford shoe in his hand, looking quite lost and in another world. The player hesitates, but suddenly comes to a sudden relization that there is no point in throwing a brown oxford shoe at another player.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"One has certain responsibilities, one has to make choices." & "This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's
brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same skin, but not the same."
The Moon
Robert Bly
I go off to see the moon in the pines.
Far in the woods I sit down against a pine.
The moon has her porches turned to face the light,
But the deep part of her house is in the darkness.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
I thought this poem got you thinking on what it could possibly mean, whether or not this has a meaning or if it has just been straight out said. It's an intresting poem full of "out of the box" thinking.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I am intrested yet confussed on whether it has a meaning, which I come to believe that there is. I feel scared but at the same time I feel full of happiness.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"The moon has her porches turned to face the light" & "But the deep part of her house is in the darkness."
5) Most Motive
Smoking
Elton Glaser
I like the cool and heft of it, dull metal on the palm,
And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame,
Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base
And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip
Turned red as a warning light, blown brighter by the breath,
The pull and the pump of it, and the paper's white
Smoothed now to ash as the smoke draws back, drawn down
To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink,
And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow,
The push and wheeze of it, a sweep of plumes in the air
Like a shako of horses dragging a hearse through the late centennium,
London, at the end of December, in the dark and fog.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
This made me want to never smoke, at first it may seem smoking is good but towards the end it was slowly going against it. It made you want to breathe, when you aren't even smoking but only reading this poem.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I felt that I needed to breathe, that my heart and lungs were grtting tight.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink, And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow"
And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame,
Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base
And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip
Turned red as a warning light, blown brighter by the breath,
The pull and the pump of it, and the paper's white
Smoothed now to ash as the smoke draws back, drawn down
To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink,
And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow,
The push and wheeze of it, a sweep of plumes in the air
Like a shako of horses dragging a hearse through the late centennium,
London, at the end of December, in the dark and fog.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
This made me want to never smoke, at first it may seem smoking is good but towards the end it was slowly going against it. It made you want to breathe, when you aren't even smoking but only reading this poem.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I felt that I needed to breathe, that my heart and lungs were grtting tight.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink, And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow"
6) Most Beautiful
Some Clouds
Steve Kowit
Now that I've unplugged the phone,
no one can reach me-
At least for this one afternoon
they will have to get by without my advice
or opinion.
Now nobody else is going to call
& ask in a tentative voice
if I haven't yet heard that she's dead,
that woman I once loved-
nothing but ashes scattered over a city
that barely itself any longer exists.
Yes, thank you, I've heard.
It had been too lovely a morning.
That in itself should have warned me.
The sun lit up the tangerines
& the blazing poinsettias
like so many candles.
For one afternoon they will have to forgive me.
I am busy watching things happen again
that happened a long time ago.
as I lean back in Josephine's lawnchair
under a sky of incredible blue,
broken - if that is the word for it -
by a few billowing clouds,
all white & unspeakably lovely,
drifting out of one nothingness into another.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
I think this is beautiful because it starts out frustrating then slowly goes away then becomes beautiful. The imagery is relaxing and leaves you wanting to be there at that exact moment.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
I Imagine a dark yet light blue clear sky with few clouds here and there. The calmness of the winds, the lawn chair sitting leveled with the grass, the pure beauty of everything together.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"Under a sky of incredible blue" & "few billowing clouds, all white & unspeakably lovely"
7) Most Intresting-Stylistically
The Yawn
Paul Blackburn
The black-haired girl
with the big
brown
eyes
on the Queens train coming
in to work, so
opens her mouth so beautifully
wide
in a ya-aawn, that
two stops after she has left the train
I have only to think of her and I
o-oh-aaaww-hm
wow !
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
The way this poem was written, and it's form was intresting, it made me want to read it. it brought my attention, and turned out to be a pretty good poem.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
When I read this poem I feel like I want to yawn, and it just seems beautiful, the way it sounds and it's visual looks.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"The black-haired girl with the big brown eyes" &
8) Most Shocking
Bike Ride With Older Boys
Laura Kasischke
The one I didn't go on.
I was thirteen,
and they were older.
I'd met them at the public pool. I must
have given them my number. I'm sure
I'd given them my number,
knowing the girl I was. . .
It was summer. My afternoons
were made of time and vinyl.
My mother worked,
but I had a bike. They wanted
to go for a ride.
Just me and them. I said
okay fine, I'd
meet them at the Stop-n-Go
at four o'clock.
And then I didn't show.
I have been given a little gift—
something sweet
and inexpensive, something
I never worked or asked or said
thank you for, most
days not aware
of what I have been given, or what I missed—
because it's that, too, isn't it?
I never saw those boys again.
I'm not as dumb
as they think I am
but neither am I wise. Perhaps
it is the best
afternoon of my life. Two
cute and older boys
pedaling beside me—respectful, awed. When we
turn down my street, the other girls see me ...
Everything as I imagined it would be.
Or, I am in a vacant field. When I
stand up again, there are bits of glass and gravel
ground into my knees.
I will never love myself again.
Who knew then
that someday I would be
thirty-seven, wiping
crumbs off the kitchen table with a sponge, remembering
them, thinking
of this—
those boys still waiting
outside the Stop-n-Go, smoking
cigarettes, growing older.
1.Why did you select this poem for this category?
The ending was shocking, I didn't think it was a thirty-seven year old woman telling her story of her past.
2.What do you feel or imagine when you read this poem?
I see a young teenage girl having fun, knowing what is right versus what is wrong and wants to have a little fun. Then you see a older women cleaning, with a blank stare; her remembering her long ago memory.
3.What are your favorite lines?
"Two cute and older boys pedaling beside me—respectful, awed." & "thinking of this—those boys still waiting outside the Stop-n-Go, smoking cigarettes, growing older.""so opens her mouth so beautifully wide in a ya-aawn"
