at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989
By: Lucille Clifton
among the rocks
at walnut grove
your silence drumming
in my bones,
tell me your names.
nobody mentioned slaves
and yet the curious tools
shine with your fingerprints.
nobody mentioned slaves
but somebody did this work
who had no guide, no stone,
who molders under rock.
tell me your names,
tell me your bashful names
and i will testify
the inventory lists ten slaves
but only men were recognized.
among the rocks
at walnut grove
some of these honored dead
were dark
some of these dark
were slaves
were women
some of them did this
honored work.
tell me your names
foremothers, brothers,
tell me your dishonored names.
here lies
here lies
here lies
here lies
hear
This poem by Lucille Clifton is very powerful especially in the way she chooses to end it with very short, straight to the point lines. Ms. Clifton is an African American who wrote this poem after a tour she took of the walnut grove plantation in South Carolina. This tour she took never mentioned slaves or anything along those matters so she was curious in asking more questions about the plantation. She wants the slaves to be remembered because although all this happened in the past it still happened and we can't just ignore what happened and try and cover it up by leaving all mention behind. The first two stanzas are her curiosity, why does no one mention the slaves because someone did the work here. She speaks of the silence under the rocks in where these men and possibly woman now sleep their eternal death under the earth. The third stanza is that she wants to know their names so that she can tell others what they did and what happened to them, so that they past my still be known regardless of the tragedy. She did her research and found that ten male slaves were accounted for but women were not included. The last stretch of the poem wraps it all together in such powerful words even though such little was said. under the rocks were black slaves, including women unaccounted for in the inventory. They did honorable work but their names were dishonored as they were not recognized in their passing. The last five lines make a huge statement to list those who lie there as "here lies" and ending it with "hear," as in listen. Listen and see the people who worked here and suffered. Open your ears and honor those who should be honored. Because they are people just like us and there they lie now unknown, unnamed... ♥
Many red devils by Stephen Crane is an amazing poem using extraordinary imagery to get his point across of our demons. The poem describes what he writes as little devils on the page running from his heart. Sometimes we have so many demons in our heart it's hard to escape them as we try and kill them, as they are now blood split on a page. I personally relate myself to this poem in how I handle my demons. It helps to write down on the troubles in your heart and lay them out on a page. Not for other peoples' eyes but just so that in your own heart can attempt to let go of everything held inside. The symbolism of devils running out, is such a great image though. I love the way he made the relation of our demons with devils literally running onto the paper as we try and crush them through our writing.
I enjoy combining music with any emotion I may be feeling. With this specific poem there are many songs that would work so well but the one I will share is, "Animal I Have Become" by: Three Days Grace.
"Animal I Have Become"
I can't escape this hell So many times i've tried But i'm still caged inside Somebody get me through this nightmare I can't control myself
So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one will ever change this animal I have become Help me believe it's not the real me Somebody help me tame this animal (This animal, this animal)
I can't escape myself (I can't escape myself) So many times i've lied (So many times i've lied) But there's still rage inside Somebody get me through this nightmare I can't control myself
So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one will ever change this animal I have become Help me believe it's not the real me Somebody help me tame this animal I have become Help me believe it's not the real me Somebody help me tame this animal
Somebody help me through this nightmare I can't control myself Somebody wake me from this nightmare I can't escape this hell
(This animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal, this animal)
So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one will ever change this animal I have become Help me believe it's not the real me Somebody help me tame this animal I have become Help me believe it's not the real me Somebody help me tame this animal (This animal I have become)
Oh No by Robert Creeley is a really short poem but says so much in so few words. The first stanza is life's journey in a nut shell! We wander through life and once we've made it so far we are there. We are now old and frail where we will finally need a place to sit in which we will be given. Everyone gets their own and isn't a crappy chair, but a good one. All of our friends will be there as well because our lives will all be around an end, but with smiles as we have lived out our lives and now it is time to be together again, to sit and rest. They will have places along side of us as we are now taking the end of our journey together. Another thought on this could be a nursing home. After life's journey we take our last sitting together in a home for the elderly. I really enjoy how the author can say so much in such a small poem. Length doesn't always determine the importance or strength that words have to offer.
The Guitarist Tunes Up by Frances Cornford brings an image of a humble performer. He takes the relationship with a woman to explain a mans relationship with his guitar. He explains it not as a man who is a "look at me I'm all that" kind of performer; but as a man who loves his guitar and plays it as if it were a woman he is in love with. He is gentle and sweet which makes the music even sweeter. He is "bent over his instrument," not as a "lordly conqueror," but as a man who is loved by a woman with so much "delight." The woman and a mans relationship with her is an underlining metaphor for his relationship with his guitar as well as the music he plays really. The guitar is his woman in this case and he will love it as such. The music is the words that "she had to say before they started, he and she, to play." The guitar is "she," as he begins to play. They work together to make music, as he plays and she brings out the beautiful melody in sweet song.
How to Write a Poem about the Sky by Leslie Marmon Silko is a beautiful poem. The first stanza gives a beautiful image almost as if their is a frozen pond in the sky with little birds walking across or hopping across. Though, it really is the birds gracefully flying in the sky. The second stanza brings the sky and the earth as one while it works as "a single breath." Through the sky we don't see the earth as a whole but beyond the sky is the whole earth. The third stanza has a great structure shift in order to give what it is saying more power. Clouds that cover the sky get moved by the wind and it opens up to show the sun. Then she uses the image of how the human body is put together in order for us to see splitting of the clouds in revealing the sky. The beauty in how she portrays and the sky and the way she uses formatting to add emotion is great. The sky really is beautiful. ♥
This poem was written for the students of the Bethel, Middle School in Bethel, Alaska in February of 1975.
What the mirror said by Lucille Clifton is such a beautiful poem about what woman should see in the mirror rather than what they think they see. It also touches on how a man should treat a woman as well. Right off from the start I could tell the author was African American by the way she says and portrays word in this poem such as "you a wonder" and "you not a noplace." I picture a woman judging herself in the mirror while the mirror decideds to speak up. First telling her how great she is, then almost mocking her thoughts of what she sees, and then brings the poem back around to see the beauty she really is. Most woman when they look in the mirror look at any flaws they see and how "fat" they are, but the truth is we are beautiful in our own way. Don't let society tell you how to look or feel. Saying that, then men, respect your lady and ladies in general. They are beautiful don't be so quick to judge the outside when true beauty is found within. Girls remember that when that man does has his hands wrapped around you, he sees you as beautiful just as you should see yourself as beautiful. The reason I enjoyed this poem was the fact that it's true even for myself... I don't look in the mirror and think beauty, I think of everything that could change to make me "beautiful." The truth is we are all beautiful and we as well as others need to keep that respect of beauty.
You are all beautiful keep your heads up always! :)
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body
I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been
a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home
I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”
this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises
news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname
pork chop
to this day
I hate pork chops
I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize
it does
she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog
to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing
he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit
to this day
he is a stick of TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity
we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell
but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong
they have to be wrong
why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
fuck off we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me
of course
they did
but our lives will only ever always
continue to be
a balancing act
that has less to do with pain
and more to do with beauty.
To This Day by Shane Koyczan is a beautiful poem! The video that the author created adds so much emotion to the words that already contain a pool of feelings. Every time I watch this video it brings me to tears from things in my own life to getting the sense of how others have felt as well. We play this video at the beginning of our show "Sideshow" because of the message it contains about how some people are different and the pain other people can cause upon others. Our directors looked at this video as acceptance and tolerance, but for me the message is for those bulling, stop, you don't realize how you are affecting people and for those being bullied, it is over coming the pain and suffering and realizing through it all we made it! We may feel weak as we are bullied but the truth is we are the strongest ones out there as we continued to push forward.
"started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit"
This particular portion in the poem seems to hit me the hardest. People around me don't know what I've been through, the pain suffered, the darkness that consumed my mind day after day. As a child who grew up alone because no one wanted to be friends with a shy little fat girl. Everyone called her stupid because dyslexia held her back from reading fast, spelling things correctly, from the tears that would fall out of frustration when it took her ten times longer to learn something than the others around her. She started struggling with depression, day by day it was like a monster consuming her brain. Her parents didn't believe her, told her to get over it... Months went by and she didn't know how to handle it any more, things happened, but it took the worst for her parents to finally listen. It took the point of almost too late for them to stop ignoring her. Depression can't be cured but it can be numbed, it can be less server, it can be helped.
"and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”"
No matter how many times we were told to give up and quit, we kept fighting we sowed ourselves back together and realized they were wrong! To this day we are not the only ones... and yet we will continue to be in pain we have to keep moving forward so that we can make it. For those of us that can relate to any of this poem, remember you are not alone and we are that much stronger because we are still here fighting, regardless of all that has happened to us. "We are graduating members from the class fuck off we made it!" The struggle will continue but even though our lives will continue to be "a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty."
