Running into a new year

In Ms. Budzileni’s 8th grade class, we read Lucille Clifton’s “[running into a new year]” and thought about how we’re moving into this new year through these complicated times. We talked a lot about how poetry can hold all of our emotions: good, bad, and complicated. We discussed the exhaustion that a lot of us feel right now and that our poems can handle that and we can share that side of ourselves in our writing. We also discussed how Lucille Clifton uses the tools of writing (capitalization, punctuation, etc) and makes them her own, even omitting them.

Ms. Budzileni 8th Grade

New Year Abel

New Year moving fast
Too fast
Like a treadmill
Going faster than I can
Exhausted
Like an ’83 Camaro that
Can’t go on anywhere anymore
It used to have the
Potential to go fast
Not anymore
Exhausted
Like an old man
Whose being forced to run.

New Year Matthew M

This new year i feel like im walking by
doing everything at my pace but as i fall behind
it turns to a treadmill like im running constantly
yet nothing’s finished. as the sun set a sigh of ease
barely any sleep so now im the slow one

New Year Matthew G

I’m walking into the new year
like a snail
I’m sleeping in the new year
like I’m a hibernating bear
I’m crawling into a new year
like a sloth going up a tree

New Year Alexa G

I am running into the new year
but yet I can’t keep up with it
I haven’t had the time to process
the past 2 years
I feel like I am running too fast but
still not moving anywhere