Dear Child

by Samantha Dolphy


Try not to worry
as you grow and
change.

See life
for what it is and
try to be fair.

Mistakes will be made.
Friends will come and go.
But you are your forever.

Rely on others but
also on yourself.
Push forward.

The world is
not simple,
nor life easy.

But you will
get through it and
continue to flourish.

Be sure of yourself,
look forward to
the future.

It may not
seem like it now, but
soon you will see.

You will mature
into someone you can
be proud to be.

Your future is bright,
your past not so narrow.
It is worth the struggle.

 Make mistakes.
Take more chances.
Be brave.

Growing up is okay,
just remember to
enjoy everything.

Challenges come, but
you will top them and
be better in the end.

Dear child,
don't be afraid to grow.
Sincerely, you.

A Distracted Laze

It pulls me down and weighs me there.
I follow a path, mechanical, as I work towards nothing.
Side-stepping, I distract myself from monotony -
Oh, the distractions of life, wailing to me from left and right.

Can I ever work towards more?

Sitting, I try to focus and learn,
pulling from the depths of me -
but nothing.
Instead, that siren's wail calls from a distance and
I can't help but lift my head.

Then I'm off again.

Deadlines come and I find myself sitting again,
pouring forth words and numbers like a machine.
I work down a path, guided though mildly directed.

When will I lead?
When will I take the first step and run?

I push against the wall in front of me, but
grow tired and quit.
I run the race of achievement,
only to slow to a walk and gaze at the sky.

I move when people push me,
but all I desire is to sit and mentally explore.
I dream, then grow tired when I think of the long path before me.

When will I see a challenge before me
and tackle it to the ground?
Will I ever be able take the reigns and steer my future?

Can I ever learn to work for me?

Lost It All

by Black Veil Brides

Lyrics:
(1) I ruled the world.
With these hands I shook the heavens to the ground.
I laid the gods to rest.
I held the key to the kingdom.
Lions guarding castle walls.
Hail the king of death.

(7) Then I lost it all
Dead and broken.
My back's against the wall.
Cut me open.
I'm just trying to breathe,
Just trying to figure it out
Because I built these walls to watch them crumbling down.
I said, "Then I lost it all."
And who can save me now?

(16) I stood above
Another war,
Another jewel upon the crown.
I was the fear of man.
But I was blind.
I couldn't see the world there right in front of me.
But now...I can...

(23) 'Cause I lost it all
Dead and broken.
My back's against the wall.
Cut me open.
I'm just trying to breathe,
Just trying to figure it out
Because I built these walls to watch them crumbling down.
I said, "Then I lost it all."
And who can save me now?

(32) I believe that we all fall down sometimes
Can't you see that we all fall down sometimes?

(34) I believe that we all fall down sometimes
Can't you see that we all fall down sometimes?

(36) I believe that we all fall down sometimes

Kingdomland

By Rachael Allen

This poem is a short piece that seems to focus on a dangerous path to a unsafe-seeming village in the distance and someone who charges ahead, paying not heed to these things. The speaker of the poem is a concerned woman who calls after her daughter, the direct audience, whom she's trying to keep from trouble. It seems to me that the poem has the deeper meaning to it that this "impassable path" represents a time in life where one must make a decision about where to go in life and the hardships that they're going to have to make - all of that leading very likely to a darker place if you don't pay enough attention, represented by the "dark village" on the "crooked hill". In this instance, the audience would be someone who is struggling to to see what's up ahead and needs a bit of a wake-up call should they be willing to realize that's what this poem is calling for. The strongest aspect of this poem would have to be imagery, because there is so very much of it. Figurative language and poetic line so still hold their own, though.
The use of poetic line in this poem seems nearly random, but upon reading it, I became aware that the lines, though long, are split up by basic ideas or details of those ideas, despite some being within the same sentence. For instance: "There is a plot of impassable paths towards it, / impassable paths overcome with bees, the stigma that bees brings." or "Come away from there - I am yelling, / while the black dog rolls in the twilit yard." The first line of the first example talks about the paths while the second line talks about bees on the path. The first line of the second example is of the mother yelling to her daughter, and the second line about a dog in a yard.
As far as figurative language, this poem has metaphor, simile and personification. Metaphor can be found in "the village is slanted, full of tragedies with slate" in that slanted means wrong or almost sinister, none of which an inanimate place can be, which is also an example of personification. Personification can also be found in "they scream all night" when referring to peacocks being plucked, because animals can't scream. Simile was found most in the examples "socks bob into the night like teeth" and "throwing drinks into the air, / like a superstitious wife throws salt;" since two unlike things are being compared in each one.
The reason I said that imagery was the most prominent is because every sentence evokes some kind of image, and pretty vivid ones at that. "The dark village sits on the crooked hill.", "There is a bottle neck at the base of the hive.", and "Small white socks bob into the night like teeth in the mouth of a laughing man / who walks backwards into darkness, throwing drinks into the air," to name a few. The poet does a great job of taking simple images and adding words to the phrases to make them more interesting and to give a more real sense of what one should be seeing when the read the words. Words like crooked, slanted, level, jogging, black, twilit the reader goes a step farther than a typical image and is given more, proper detail to see the poem in the light it was meant to be read/seen in.

Windy

Talking About the Wind - Katie Peterson

Windy was seen by most as the tyrant of the seasons. The harbinger of change, both unpleasant and wanted. What little did people know was that she was a slave to her own nature. Slipping through the trees, racing across fields, zipping through the tight spaces left over in crowded cities, Windy moved with the sole purpose of moving, of doing.
She didn't necessarily know why she did what she did, but it wasn't something she cared to bother to think about and she enjoyed it. The rush that only unweighted movement and its resulting speed provided had her constantly aching for more. There were times when it felt as though people called out to her, on hot days and on cold. It was a feeling in her gut that told her she had a purpose.
What she didn't realize was what a precipice of love and hate she stood upon without realizing. There were times when she casually sauntered through the civilizations of man and caressed their hair or blew in their faces, thrilling in the relieved smiles that blossomed on their once red, overheated faces as the cool breeze temporarily chilled their discomfort. Other times she worked herself into a frenzy, going ever faster until the point where her energies tore through everything in her path, ripping them from the root up and tossing them in the air as consequence in her determination to continue to move and see something new.
Windy never knew when her actions were praised or cursed. She didn't know when people prayed for her appearance or prayed she would just stay away. And she especially did not know about her most important talent of heralding in the seasons, bringing in her wake the change of fall or spring in a nearly routine like manner. All that she knew was that the world needed her and that she had to see all of it and each person and creature living in it. So she moved, and she danced and she explored. Her emotions carried her away and dictated the world around her that only she knew best, subjecting its subjects to her whims.

The Brutalist

By Benjamin Bloch

The line use in this poem is not exactly of a normal caliber, but not is it necessarily unique to poetry. Though I don’t know the particular lining method the poet Benjamin used, I am able to see the way the line breaks play into the stanzas, as well as the fact that there’s a broad use of both enjambment and end-stopping. I think the author rotates between these two line endings for the purpose of drawing attention to specific ideas within the lines he writes to add to the overall meaning.

To back up, it seems to me that the poem the author has put together tells of a person who was good at fitting himself into the situations that arose and to make himself into the image he desired to be. This was particularly evident to me in lines 7 through 9 “When I was hungry…up in a wristwatch,” as well as lines16 through 18 “And when the easy...I knew what that was too.” Having this in mind, each line break began a new part of the idea in its own separate line, giving it the feel of being its own idea while remaining still a part of the whole.

For example, the 4^th stanza, lines 13 through 15, reads “And the words that dissolved into hard letters, / hooked into me, harmless, but forever hooks, / I ground down after them.” Line 14, beginning with “hooked” is a continuation of that idea that the “hard letters” were hooked into the speaker, but when looked at as just its own line, it becomes the idea of simple hooks being forever in the speaker. Still, the line break emphasizes more than anything that the “hard letters” pack a punch and were more dangerous and impacting because the idea of hooking into someone is put up front and on its own.

The Immigrant's Song

By Tishani Doshi

I liked this poem for its story it told and the message it worked to convey. It had rather nice imagery in it as well, so that, of course, befitted me as well, considering the assignment. A poem is pretty much made, in my opinion, by the imagery it uses and the things that it tells the reader. It seemed to me that the speaker was a person - any person - who had gone through the harshness of war and violence and just wanted to forget. I think the intended audience was anyone who wanted to ask the speaker about war and what it was like when all that speaker wanted was not to remember. This poem has a way of telling anyone who's curious just how harsh these rough times can be and why it would be best just to forget. While I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, I can understand where the speaker is coming from. I particularly liked the lines "Let us not name our old friends//who are unravelling like fairy tales//in the forests of the dead." To me, this particular part of the poem is the most descriptive and central to the purpose of the poem. It's saying that those who have died in fighting are left alone to rot where they are, and no matter how much one may wish otherwise, nothing is going to be changed about it. The lines "Let us not speak of the long arms of sky//that used to cradle us at dusk," are also cool because they describe a calm, relaxing night where there were no worries. "You might pray that the paper//whispers your story to the water,//that the water sings it to the trees,//that the trees howl and howl//it to the leaves." These last few lines where my second favorite, because they bring inanimate objects to life, creating a beautiful, calming scene of whispering sounds taking one's worries away.