Emotions in Motion - The Chicago Poetry Center

Emotions in Motion

For our 4th week of poetry, Hamline 6th graders focused on their emotions. I asked students to pick an emoji that described how they felt that morning. There were six emojis: 😐🙂🥰😠😞😂to choose from. The most popular emojis were the 1st, 3rd, and 4th choices. Students were feeling either tired, sad, or angry because they were waiting for school to end and Spring Break to start. Only one student actually picked the laughing face emoji because he felt silly that day. I then asked students to see how they felt later on that day and if their moods changed.

Together we read the poem “Loneliness,” by Kevin Tran a teen who was featured in the poetry anthology “Tell the World.” In his poem Tran uses personification to describe his feeling of loneliness. He lives in a single room apartment/ He wears a plain white tee, blue jeans, and a black jacket / Loneliness has many /He forgets he his lonely with his friends/ but only for a moment/ Loneliness lives in me. Loneliness is an emotion that everyone experiences. There are times when we want to be alone to relax and recharge, but there might be moments where we feel alone because it’s hard to talk to family and friends.

Inspired by Kevin Tran’s poem, students wrote their own poems, imagining their emotions as humans: walking, talking, and living their own lives.

Mr. Marroquin 6th Grade Group 1

Mis Emotions Milagros B.

Me pongo triste Cuando esa sensasion de soledad se apodea
Caundo no me siento querida y estoy sola
Tanbien caundo siente que existo solo yo en el mundo
No se me olvida caundo solo estoy al espejo

Calm Antonio J.

Calm wears a white sweater
with headphones around his neck.
Calm would drink cold water
and not rush his work.

Mr. Marroquin 6th Grade Group 2

My Emotion Is Sadness Joaquin A.

Sadness wears a black hood all day,
with his head down all day.
Sadness looks like a frown on his face
and not talking all day.
Sadness feels like you are about to cry
or get any because when you’re sad
and you don’t talk to anyone, that’s Sadness.
Sadness can turn into Anger when you
hold it in for too long.
You will get angry, I know because
I had felt like this before.
And after all that anger, I started to cry
After that, you feel sad and angry
at the same time. The end.

Greed Deigo F.

Greed with his bought friends walks around.
He bumps into Boredom.
Boredom with is baggy shirt walks away from Greed.
Greed, feeling annoyed, yells at Boredom
for wasting a good time.
Boredom tells him to “Be quiet” and Greed spits on him.
He just walked off and didn’t care.
Greed with his messy hair and the nicest jeans
and Supreme shirt walked off.

Ms. Torres 6th Grade Group 3

Anger Amy A.R.

Holding on to someone who aint worth it and wasting your time
on them is going to get all your anger on someone instead of them.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent
of throwing it at someone else.
He said that he had no anger towards the person who shot him.
He never raised his voice in anger.
She was shaking in anger.
“She was breathless with anger”

DEPRESIÓN Arlene O.

Depression is a Boy and he always crying in his room and he is lonely. He listens to Ivan Cornejo and sits there lonely. He is broken like glass. He remembers that he gives a girl his heart and she broke it every time. Nothing can work because they don’t deserve him. He wonders where he is going to find someone who actually is going to care about him.

Felicidad Dhylan V.L.

Felicidad mi única emoción a veces ayudo pero monton nunca te dejo triste pero si te cuento chiste pero si sigues estando triste me voy pero contigo,siempre me vas a ver con un jersey gris me gusta comer estrellas luz y alegría yo no camino yo corro ya que mi alegría es igual a mi energía siempre estare apoyandote aunque no me ayudan me siento feliz ya que tu estas muy feliz he conseguido varios logros y me alegrado mucho de ellos claro siempre voy a estar alegre termino con esto tu estas feliz y yo socializo contigo te entrego mi amistad con toda mi vida nunca te dejare solo pero si te acabo de conocer sienteme como un amigo ya que te acompaña todo los siglos.