To My Younger Self…

Welcome back to my favorite series, “Poetry with Waters 6th Grade!” Last week, poets learned a bit about the structure of poems through our discussion of lines and stanzas. We read the Gwendolyn Brooks poem “Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)” and talked about how the poem felt inspiring. Students then wrote inspiring poems of their own to their younger selves. Check out a few of them below:

 

Ms. Roman, 6th Grade

A Poem By You Linus

In a world of

blob-blab

In the continent of

goob-glab

In the country of

doob-daab

In the town of

ooga-booga

There is “madness”

 

But that is what

they see

They dream of liberating us

what we see is culture,

music,

freedom,

happiness

but this is our

town

but this is our

country

but this

is our world

and we live here

too

Earlier, Earlier... Sam L.

Say to myself

the fears

the say-nos,

the boredom

that there are many ways to change your life

 

How I should’ve rode

Steel Vengeance earlier

How I should have found

My joy in space

How I should have

figured out sports stats,

earlier, earlier…

 

Now I stand two years forward

Knowing I could have never found

my joys

and now how happy I am that

I found them

 

But then it comes back

back, to haunt me

earlier, earlier

but I remember

how it changed my life

Say To The Girl Joy D.

Say to the girl who isn’t yet 12 years old

Say to the girl with a sister who screams

Say to the girl who has nothing to hold

Say to the girl with fear in her dreams

Say to the girl who thinks grades equal life

that the monster in the closet and

the man in the moon will haunt her

 

Say to her that she isn’t forgotten,

tell her that while there’s still more

to lose, there’s still more to gain

tell her that two halves can still be whole

and that sleeping isn’t danger

and smiles don’t have to be fake.

You’ll be OK.

 

Because at the end of the day,

even though night will come again,

you’ll be OK.

So say to the girl,

you’ll be OK.

Ms. Smallwood, 6th Grade

My Younger Self Merritt M.

Say to the…

5 year old me

I am a boy

from Chicago

and I love basketball

I have a little

brother that I can’t describe except

he took the way I look

 

Some advice I wish I gave

drink more milk and I could be 5’8″

but back to my younger self

I wouldn’t do anything different

This is me,

and I wouldn’t change it

Enjoy It While It Lasts Corinne K.

Past me, enjoy it

the fun, the freedom, the past

Enjoy it while it lasts

Your sister is clumsy and weird

but you love her and so does she

 

Love the time with your grandpa

The joy, the laughs, the past

Enjoy it while is lasts

Enjoy it because some things

don’t last

 

Have fun with life

have fun with the

hair, the clothes, the past

Enjoy it while it lasts.

The Importance of Knowledge Felix T.

Say to the 10 year old

Say that glory is for the fool

That true power is knowledge

That when all else fails, knowledge

is what brought things to the point

they are. When glory is achieved

it lasts only a fleeting moment

Then it is gone. The time of

glory’s importance has long gone.

 

The importance of knowledge is

far too great to comprehend.