“a poem like no other poet as written or rewritten before.”

I can’t believe O-School students are halfway through their 20-week poetry residency. For week 14, we revisit poems we have written together throughout our residency. We read and discussed the poem “Dear Poet,” by Lee Bennett Hopkins. In his poem, Hopkins shares great advice to poets, that rewriting can help strengthen their poems.

Group A Middle School

I Don't Wanna Go to School

I don’t wanna go to school,
half of school is bad.

When things are good,
people have to ruin them.

The only part when school
is good, is when people
prove they like me.
When people don’t ruin
my art.

Therapy is good.
Math is annoying, but good.
Base class kinda good.
I do not like the fact that
I have to walk up the stairs
for music, like my legs
are weak.

Please principal, give me
a better role in this school.

Heart

My life is jaw dropping,
heart stopping, time stopping.
Grim walking, case dropping
Dime dropping, dime stocking.
My life is so painful.

Shannadah The Shadow Goddess

Shanndah rises from the sky.

Uses her spell to make everyone
or anything have a shadow.

She will appear during a storm.

The wind will make her close the door.

Her quote is “You don’t always
have to hide your shadow.”

Maybe in Another Universe

Maybe in another universe,
I am able to live correctly.

Maybe in another universe,
I fit in society.

Maybe in another universe,
he isn’t screaming out of me,
a girl, but I don’t feel like one.

Maybe in another universe,
I don’t feel like this.

Maybe in another universe,
I am perfect.

Maybe in another universe,
I don’t wish for other universes.

Group B Middle School

Ranting About Haikus & This is Ironic

Haikus are stupid
they follow too many rules
An inanity

I am writing this
outside, but I hate outside
this is ironic

King of the Pencils

I lay my pencils out, shaped like my crown.
ready to rule.

My pencil writes “Gymnopedie I,” my pencil draws
portraits of people, my pencil also slams against
desks and writes messages into books.
My pencil is writing this summary right now,
as it should. Every weekend, my pencil slides
back into the backpack with the rest of its family,
and waits for the next school day.

Blue

Blue is bold and beautiful.
Blue like the sky on a sunny day.
Blue is how I feel, when feeling lonely.
Blue are the waves of the ocean.
Blue masking tape when moving homes.
Blue Blue Blue

Blue and black fish swim in the tank.
My mind is never blank.

Blue is in me & you.

The Legend of Squirkle

Long ago and far away,
in a castle in the sky.
There lived a being, mighty and great,
that shall never die.

And it was called a “tiger,” and it ruled
for years and years
until one day when it all changed,
and everything got weird.

He carries a mighty sword,
and a shield round like a circle,
and his name will be renowned,
the amazing Kind Squirkle.

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