Hands On Stanzas

Letter Poems

Danielle Aquiline's 4th grade student from Neil Elementary in Chatham wrote letter poems to the troops in Iraq.  Here they are proudly displaying their sealed envelopes:

Poems from Walter Reed Elementary

Englewood
Briona H.

Living in Englewood
It’s all good
Until the kids stop playin’
And the guns start blazin’
Living in Englewood
It’s all good
Until the families are broken
All the men are gone or hoping

Living in Englewood
It’s all good
Until mother is out on the street
Strutting her stuff
She thinks it’s okay cause she had it
Rough
Living in Englewood
Is not really all good

Obstacles
Dina M.

don’t be a coward
fearful and weak
be the last one to quit
the first one to speak

don’t hide your face
from light or day
be courageous – stay that way

no need to run from your trails, troubles or problems
have confidence in your steps
as you reflect to solve them

if you happen to fall
don’t lie there and die
get up with a thought
hold your head up high

be wise
courageous
bold
and brave
and life will be worth living
from your birth
to your grave

Special
Miya C.

What makes me special
Is my style
What makes me special
Is my smile
What makes me special
Is my look
My virginity no one has took
What makes me special
A family that really cares
All the joy and love in the air
What makes me special
The beauty mark on the right side of my face
And my footsteps no one can trace
My loving grandma
No one will ever replace

Englewood
Janielle M.

Englewood area
Hard to live in
But I survived
In school the last
Past days
Dealing with death
Worrying about leaving eighth grade
Reaching out and touching lives
Dealing with friends and how tired I am
Of them
Worrying about my family
Thinking about how much
I love them

Dreaming
Sierra A.

Every other day I dream about
Dying
When I jump up I am constantly
Crying
Is it real or is it fake
It makes me wanna just stay awake
Running and running
It’s like I’m hunting
In a forest
Running with my sister
And I keep shushing her
Someone jumps out and without a doubt
I jump up and pout
Wondering is it fake
Where did I make a mistake
Running running
Dying dying
Oh dreams stop coming
So I can stop crying

Can I Go to Heaven
Allesha G.

can I go to heaven where I think
everyone else is
can I go to heaven
here I don’t want to live
I think heaven is a beautiful place I want to go
can I go to heaven
let me go
before I go to heaven I want
everyone to know
I need to go to heaven because no one
would let me grow

Englewood
Jasmine K.

So many killers and drug dealers
Very cold streets
you walk past
people in need
so many addicts
hanging on the corner
trying to find a way to
support their habits

young kids smoking drugs
not caring about their educations
cops at every school
so many fights
this is what you get
from the Englewood neighborhood
it just ain’t right

Am I or Will I Be
Gloria L.

Am I the first person born
Or will I be
Am I the first person hurt or will I be
Am I the first person left behind
Or will I be
Am I an everlasting person
Or will I be
Will I be the first person abused
Or am I
Will I be the first person shot or killed
Or am I
Will I be the first person to survive gangs and jail Or
Will I be the next deceased
Am I or will I be

What is the Meaning
Sandi C.

When I look around I don’t know what I see
I see a world that has no meaning
Everyone thinks that the world is a fun place
How do you know that
I see a place
Sky and city
No one is around
I look up at the sky and wonder
Why it is
So big
What’s up there
Does the sky have any say on
Why I’m here
Can it answer my questions about
The world
The reason for my appearance
Am I supposed to make something happen
To figure out why we belong here
If so I can not do it
I don’t understand the meaning of anything
I am just a black hole

Poems from Beasley Academic Magnet Center

The word poem
Monica F.

Live life
Every second
Every minute
Every day

Think before you speak
Speak before you move
Make the bad into the good

Christmas is here
Holiday cheer
Sharing and caring
Happy and living
Having dinner showing love
Laughing and caring for everyone
Singing and having fun
Hoping nothing will go wrong


My Neighborhood
Tylar W.

South Shore is the place to be.
It has food and stores for you and me.
However, it does have its pros and cons.
Like nowhere to park from dusk to dawn.

There are houses and town homes and apartments too.
There is the bus stop and train for people without cars.
Why do I stay in South Shore?
Because South Shore is the place to be

Perspective on the American Dream
Chasidee W.

Walking through
Territorial premises
Homes that people call
Their own
Blocking into view
What used to be new
Now old
Shabby, hot but cold
The American dream
Is what you make of it

Stuck then found
Discovered
Quickly around
Admitted and known
Is what kids want to be
When full grown

In My Dreams
Amari W.

In my dreams
I always see a different type of me

In my dreams
I always know
Which way to go

In my dreams
Can I ever see
The me that I want to be


That fateful day
Freddie C.

While rambling through the attic
I was called by a book
A book that told me step by step
How to become a great cook

And ever since that fateful day
I’ve cooked things if people pay
Ask Lee, Brian, even James
I show my talent with no shame

Music
Monica F.

Not rock but not RnB
Something you can feel
It’s not exactly my type of music
It’s something I can listen to
Jazzy and mellow
Something you can rock to
Not old school not new school
But something you can can get used to

Ediciones Escaramuja
Teanna McG.

It was was late in the night
And they were all there
Wanting to be treated fair
Ready to stand and fight

They had their torches
Ready to burn
So the others could learn
Not to mess with their fortress

I feel like they’re wrong
For whomever they’re after

Older Men
Terrance N.

8 or 9 I see everyday
everytime they see me
youngblood is what they say
giving me advice to stay in school
been doing that since I’ve been in school

used to cut my hair
when I was a boy
get a good report card
I get a toy

Everytime I see them
youngblood is what they say
I see 8 or 9 older men
Everyday

American Dream
Victoria A.

American Dream
Does it exist
Do people believe in the
American Dream

In the dream we want to be
Free
We want to be
Equal
We want to be
Loved

My people are locked in lies and hatred
We need to come together
As one

Untitled
Achaunti S.

Africans and Americans
Equal all as one
Beaten down and turned around
We shall all be found
In a town laughing
Crying over all of the dying
From all around

Light and dark
In the park hand in hand
We scream we shout
We all talk about how we come from
Here and there
They don’t know we come from everywhere

More Congrats to Mitchell

One more bravo goes out to Mitchell Elementary: 5th grader Marco Moreno placed third in Area 4's Speech Arts contest with his recitation of Pablo Neruda's Ode to the Apple.

Congratulations Mitchell Students!

Gin Kilgore, Mitchell Elementary's Magnet Cluster Lead Teacher, reports that a number of students from Mitchell are to be published in the 2006 Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans.  Here are some selections from Mitchell to tide you over until publication:

Untitled

Nick D.

In my yard

I have talking grass

And deaf flowers.

The grass always talks,

Never knowing

the flowers can’t hear.

All day long talking

Not knowing.

I sleep thinking of

talking flowers

and deaf grass.

Still, a secret lies in my yard.

Oh TV

Deonte Polk

You give me the channels

that I need

if you die on me

it will be OK because

I will find another

and I hope it works

better than you

no dots or lines

on its big screen

and I won’t

drop

water

on my new TV

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Leaf

Stephanie G.

1.                  Aggravating (having to pick them up), useless and crummy.

2.                  Inspiring—makes you do so many things.

3.                  Beautiful—have many different shapes and colors and crunchy sounds.

4.                  Fun, fun to make a pile and jump on them.

5.                  Scatter all around without caring about life or its surroundings.

6.                  Freedom of going anywhere without having to come back.

7.                  Delicate, like a baby, soft as a baby’s skin.

8.                  Dry as sand in the desert.

9.                  Flat as a table.

10.              Rough as rock.

11.              Light as a feather.

12.              Ugly and shapeless.

13.              Full of shape and color.

Family Member

Precious L.

My cousin was the one I could talk to

about everything

and hang out with

She was fun and comfortable.

Everyone said we looked alike.

My cousin was a dreamer.

She got along with everybody.

She was the one who gave me things

and took me places

without asking my mom.

Her death wasn’t the type of thing

I would think about.

Her death really hurt me.

I broke down because I lost everything.

Her baby and her mother died.

The only people I got now is her sisters and her brother

and I don’t see them much.

Every time people say things

water gets in my eyes.

A Poem to Water

David O.

Oh water

you bathe me

you rinse off the germs

you wash the dishes

so I can eat again

you rinse my clothes

when I do laundry

I watch you splash

against the ocean rocks

I can swim in you

I take a glass cup

and drink the water in you.

I wonder, then I say

you are refreshing.

Guatemala

Romario R.

Oh! Guatemala

how yellow and hot

you make me glow at

the time of sunset.

I love you so

much

I would never

leave

you.

Oh! Guatemala

I love you so much

and always dream

of you.

Your mountains

so cold,

so shivering,

so icy.

Your sun so hot,

and burning my

eyes like pieces

of ice.

Oh! Guatemala

I here

right now

write this poem

to show my love

for you.

Ode to the Chocolate

Daisy A.

You, chocolate

you are so milky

once I put you

in my mouth.

You are so

sweet.

Your tastiness

just makes me want more.

You are the only

one I love

so tasty, smooth.

I just want the

Niagara Falls

with chocolate fishes.

Little pieces of

chocolate

you give me cavities

but no matter what sorts of stuff

you give me

nothing is going to make me

stop loving you.

New Skateboard

Stephanie B.

Come play

my skateboard is

new

do you like it

I do

let’s go to the park

I think it’s

time to go

we’ve been playing

all day

it’s getting dark

we should go

home

come back tomorrow

and bring a friend

so he can play

with my new skateboard

too.

Shadow

Abraham V.

Darkness that lags behind you.

Always by your side.

Blending in the night with all the mischief.

Mimicking.

Also amusing, making different figures with them.

Harmless to people but

there and then there

always by you.

Night Time

Cody M.

The houses are haunted

by what I don’t know.

I hear strange noises

and down the stairs I flow.

I run down the stairs

turn the corner across the hall.

I look to the fireplace

and see them all.

Indians dancing

in the light of the fire.

I see a strange light

and I start to rise higher.

Night Sky

Marco M.

Kids are sleeping comfortably

and are sleeping with the angels.

Grown ups are half awake and half asleep,

thinking of schedules

and burglars.

People in offices are still

trying to work

and are drinking coffee.

People are too alert

to go to sleep

and are scared.

Kids wake up with energy

and run to the kitchen

expecting breakfast

on the table but there isn’t.

Grown ups now are sleeping

without energy.

What are children going to do

Without their grown ups?

They will be late for school.

The best thing is to stay with your parents

and make their breakfast and

give them a surprise.

Joseph R.

Courage is something

you need to live on this green,

hard to live on earth.

to lean off that balance beam

to jump off the diving board at the city pool

to try to fly for the first time

to ride without training wheels

even if you know you might get hurt

but that courage keeps you going.

Rejection

Selena A.

Heartbreak is like a jawbreaker

you can try to bite

as hard as you can but

it still won’t break.

Your teeth start to hurt

your jaw is tired so,

you give up.

You have realized

that you just can’t break it,

so, you try to go on with your life.

The Special of Snow

Genesis P.

When it snows,

the place looks

like a big huge

bed,

but with a

white clean blanket

and on that blanket

there are small, tiny

dots with lots of

designs on them.

Every time

it snows

there is a

big memory

that brings

me to the past!

Once the

big king of heat

comes to visit,

the memory

dies, melts

just

like a snowflake.

Snow is. . .

Maribella S.

Snow is those white little cold things

that fall from the sky

straight through your face

and land on the ground

making big piles.

People coming and picking it up

and making snow balls

then comes

“Snow ball fight!”

Kids falling on the ground

that’s full of snow and

making snow angels.

Everyone come inside

have a hot cocoa

after playing in

the snow.

Ode to my Toy

Melanie H.

Especially to my trollz doll

the way her hair waves

on the wind

the color of her hair

matches

the light of the sun

it reminds me of when I wake up in the morning

or

when I have a bad hair day

The way her eye

sparkles

The way she

smiles it makes me so happy

for the rest of the day.

When I am alone and bored

I play and talk to her

at the same time.

Students from Kozminski and South Shore Published!

Pam Osbey's students from Kozminski Elementary and The School of Entrepeneurship at South Shore Campus have been published online at Rock Publications:

Onijhia Jones

Matthew Benson

James Allen

Davon Estese

Ashley Fitzpatrick

John Guillory

Brittany King

Tycelynn Thompson

Tarkington 5th Grade Cento

Richard Meier composed this cento using lines written by his 5th grade students in Mr. Green's, Ms Mitchell's, Mr. Dunlap's, and Mr. Kimbrough's classes at Tarkington Elementary.

A cento is a form of poetry that means "stiched together." In a cento, lines may be borrowed from different sources. Many centos are 100 lines long!

Tarkington Cento

I wish I was happy but never mind.
Today the sons of liberty
will take down the sun,
taking the stars from the sky,
because my heart doesn't have a
normal life.
It's not wrong.

Why do we talk?
Why don't we?
So I can say ahooo!!!!!!
My gravest moment was when I had my baby.

Why is the sky blue
to no one, I don’t want
a rose
because
in my head there’s animals studying
a windy day,
the sky, and one girl that
is shy in the
nature and everything.

When a bird flies it is like
climbing the trees while
a student said: The gravest moment was
always eating little white mice
to wake my Mom.

Yesterday I was a table,
not the flower bent to stand up.
You need to see them close because
I feel like a soldier in
tomorrow. I will be one butterfly
heading the ball into the net.

My teacher said,
I remember
to do nothing
chopping down a tree
standing tall, like the world.

Last night I dreamt just seeing black
because I got a spankin’ for throwin’ eggs at a house.

English is fun to learn. Cat
don’t like that little mouse.
Even hate has more joy at times
and I sing a song. “He so lonely.”
When a man drowned in me,
inside of me I see light
at schools or at the table at home.
And there’s a whole
girl, not with a lot of energy, but
no church bells, no skipping butterflies.
For this, only for this
I don’t feel
all day without even stopping,
because it’s sweet,
forest pouring with rain, and I’m looking
around Buzzing and a bird
from the
Alphabet Train of Thought
Professors might seem good but you never know
the stars and the moon.

Everyone has the same amount of
I ask myself. Why do some girls like to go to the. . .
Because, the neighbor is screaming,
an evil bunny coming to me. I remember
because life is just plain and
amazing things happening
pulling me like power. The ground
with nothing but a tree keeping me company,
laughing at me, even my dog laugh at me
like a star floating.

Take off all your nerves and dance
a big mouth.
And a flower said
I used to think that life was
exclamatory sentences that
is free and there are oceans
zoning out the ring
of the night.

But I don’t feel like a teacher
I don’t feel like a
truth and the whole truth.
Tomorrow everything will be the opposite.
My loneliness is nothing to be spoken
or Ed eating jawbreakers
floating in the ocean.
Could I float around the room
with my dog barking
my alarm going beep beep beep?

Why is our teacher teaching us this
around and around and books about
people catching the
donuts looking like a clock?
Them are all the things I don’t feel.
No one else can change that
time when you need something when you need a watch to tell its time.

When the trees lose their color and their leaves,
to my dog barking in my backyard
I’m at the beach.

Name with alphabet soup
at 3:00 a.m. when
I don’t feel like myself.
I is for the igloos in Antarctica.

But it ended.
Dancer dancing around the stage,
Zappato is a shoe in Spanish.

Why does a president make wars?
Because the girls jumped rope
first day of spring.

This poem was read today during the sold out Hands on Stanzas Reading at The Old Town School of Folk Music by Tarkington's poet in residence Richard Meier. Poets in residence Eric Elshtain, Cassie Sparkman, Larry O. Dean and avery r. young also read, along with students students Cruz Nunez (Tarkington), Kristin Kawazoye (Galileo), Arica Heyd (Ebinger), Isabel Rios (Shields), and Sernetra Scott (Hay).

Collage Poems

James Shea's students from Peirce Elementary in Rogers Park wrote these poems using words they had cut out from magazines:


Texas night a cow beat up
-Juan R.

dumping spend made for you
-Christian Z.

about a summer ago my family
-Caitlin S.

I and my study
-Eliana R.

discover the doctor horns when someone asks secret
-Alex M.

everytime time breakfast is open but McDonald's has
-Carlos T.

Prescott Literacy Night

Students from Prescott Elementary will celebrate Literacy Night on Wednesday, April 5 from 5-7pm with poetry performances by students from poet in residence Parry Rigney's three classes.  Mrs. Buttle's 4th graders will read their poetry and distribute chapbooks they've constructed. 

Spring Is . ..

Beautiful poems written on this beautiful S*P*R*I*N*G day by first graders at Kozminski Elementary in Hyde Park:

Untitled
by Tarves

I like Spring because you get to play outside.
I like Summer because you don't have to wear coats.
I like Summer because you get ice cream.
I like Fall because you get to rake leaves.
I like the sunshine.

Summer is Fun
by Dionesha B.

I like Spring it is very fun.
The sun gives flowers.
The rose are so pretty roses.
At summer I see butterflies.
At summer I see bees.
At summer I see birds.
At summer I like to bike.
I like the rain and snow.

Untitled
by Xaki

I see sunshine in the spring.
I see ladybugs in the spring.
Spring is great.
I see flowers in the spring
I see sunshine in the spring.
I see butterflies ikn the spring.
I see roses in the spring.
I see black ants in the spring.
I see birds in the spring.

Spring
by Tia G.

Spring is fun.
Spring is great.
Daises are yellow.
Spring is sunflowers.
I love Spring!
Spring is the best.
Spring makes me help.
Spring is cool.
Spring is funny.
I like Spring.
Spring is good.