Poetry Box for Teens

New Poem from Erin!

2009-02-18T18:43:00.000-08:00

All right, guys, Erin was awesome enough to send me a poem to put up here. She didn't give me a title, just the poem. Thanks for submitting Erin! =D

i found your hoodie in the back of my closet.
it still smells like your victoria secrete perfume.
my friend thought he hid the hoodie well...
but, not well enough.
i wore it last nite.
it made me fell i still had a p0art of you in my arms.
i even slept in it.
i wore it to work and got paint on it.
my friends ... Read Morewont be happywhen they find out im wearing it.
they'll take it away again.
i just miss having you in my arms.
your sweet smell that intoxicated me.
your cute uneven breaths as you slept in my arms. i told you i burned the hoodie along with the bear you gave me.
i lied.
i still sleep with the bear. i just didnt know where my friends hid the hoodie..i wish i still had you, but nothing in life is perfect. so now im wearing your hoodie and sleeping with your bear, just to feel like your still in my arms.
i wish iNEVER found that d*** hoodie!

Remember, guys you can still submit! Email me at rosefla@eden.rutgers.edu, I've been checking that email more often! Thanks to those who do read the scant few posts I put up here. I'm sorry I take so long with it, life gets hectic in college. I don't know when I sleep.....

You know you can still submit, right?

2009-01-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, it's Rose.

I know, OMIGOSH, right?! WHERE HAS THIS CHICK BEEN?!

Well, college. But if you still had submissions, you know you just have to email them to me and I can put them up. Just email them to me at rosalind39@verizon.net.

I promise you, no matter how hectic my life might sound (after all, college does have a scary, busy ring to it), I will always find time to put anything you guys want me to up. You guys who submitted to me over the summer, or let me use your work if I asked you about it were a HUGE help for me when it came to earning my Gold Award. The least I can do is keep up with this blog. I know, it got dead, but NO ONE SUBMITTED. It's ok to submit stuff to me, you know.

I promise, I will try to keep this blog more alive. I know I got some comments that I only just approved, for some reason blogspot sent the information to the old email address by accident. TRUST ME I WILL NOT BE CHECKING THE OLD EMAIL! EMAIL ME AT rosalind39@verizon.net if you have a submission for me, okay?

Hope you had a GREAT holiday season, and best of luck in the new year!

Hey guys!

2008-10-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to update here. So I earned my Gold Award, so to those people who sent submissions or allowed me to put up poems of theirs from the EBHS Folio, THANK YOU!!!!

If anyone is still interested, you can email submissions to rosalind39@verizon.net

I check that email more often, now that I don't need the Girl Scout email for Gold work.

Success!

A Plea for Some New Submissions!

2008-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time,
There was a girl who loved to rhyme.
She knew there were others who liked poems too
And she wanted to share those poems with you.
So she set up a blog
Where she posted a haiku about a frog,
And some poems that were kind of weird;
However there was one thing that she feared:
That no one would submit their work.
And that would make her feel like a dork.
Alas! She thought, Why isn't there a submission yet?
So she is begging you:
Send submissions to
ebgirlscout1@verizon.net!

Seriously. Please. I would love to have some submissions for the blog!

New Poem!

2008-08-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem from Erin!

her eyes used to sparkle.
they used to shine when she smiled.
her smile faded along with her eyes.
stiff and cold like a corpse.
only shes living .
pale skin,once glowing.
stomach empty,once full.
there is nothing left to her but bone.
her flesh almost torn away.
it looks like shes bleeding thru her eyes...
thats only the tears that burns her flesh away.
she promised.
she was never good at keeping promises.
fingers nails painted black
hair the same
she lies in her grave and slowly dies

REMINDER: If you want to submit a poem, email it to me at ebgirlscout1@verizon.net, okay? Have fun reading/writing! =D

REMINDER REMINDER!!!!

2008-08-05T13:31:00.001-07:00

So this is a reminder, obviously. Tomorrow, Wednesday August 6th, I'm running a poetry workshop geared towards teens at the East Brunswick Public Library. It starts at 7, and will meet in the Teen Section of the Library. Feel free to bring poems that you are working on, because later in the evening we will be working on sharing and critiquing poetry with a local poetry writing group, Raritan Poets.

Any questions (OR SUBMISSIONS TO THE BLOG!!!) email me at ebgirlscout1@verizon.net.

Hope to see you there! =D

Two Poems!

2008-08-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

So we've got two poems. The first is another from Matt, and the second is one I wrote myself.

So, without further ado, the poems! Starting with Matt's "One Coin, Two Faces"

One Coin, Two Faces

My love
So strong.

My heart
So happy.

My soul
So complete.

Torn apart
When she said no.

My mind
In chaos.

My heart
In despair.

My soul
In pain.

Until she said
Yes.

And my poem (which I'm working on a little bit here and there, so feel free to crit), "Worship"

“Worship”
I am
spontaneous!
I dance in the kitchen spinning, staring at the ceiling
Pretending it’s the sky
and I sing
whatever it is
I want to
whenever I want to
at complete random
like an iPod shuffle
I am
spontaneous!
I doodle in margins
and write poetry next to bio notes
I jump in beat
to random stuff
like the sounds of
a basketball bouncing on the gym
floor
and
I spend hours
alone
in my room
writing poetry while listening
to music
and thinking of how wonderful it is to be
I,
Spontaneous,
A Goddess of the Random.

New Submission! "A Wind's Whisper"

2008-07-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

So here's a poem Matt wrote! Remember, if you want to send something in, email it to me at ebgirlscout1@verizon.net

“A Wind’s Whisper”

A solitary note,
Slips past the window
And whispers in my ear.

I fly back to my time of youth
And see the crowds.
How they all face one man.

He stands there with guitar in hand,
And sways with comic grace.
The long fingered hand strikes a note.

The sound weaves through the crowd
And resembles wails and screams of sorrow.
The cries of a queen weeping.

The wails change character,
Turning to hope,
For a day somewhere over the rainbow.

Now it reaches a crescendo,
Demonstrating the power of soul
And making me as bold as love.

The note morphs into a heart-wrenching screech,
And rends a hole in the velvet tones.
The man shimmers and breaks like glass.

I slip away into the sea like castles made of sand,
The memory retreating in a purple haze.
Present destroying past in unyielding fury.

I open my eyes,
Wet with tears
At the pain of remembrance.

More Poetry! :D

2008-07-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

So here is a Shakespeare sonnet Barbara sent in:

Sonnet #146
CXLVI.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
[ ] these rebel powers that thee array;
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

Remember, if you feel like submitting something, just email it to me at ebgirlscout1@verizon.net

We've Got a Poem! "To Hope Or Not to Hope"

2008-07-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

So Rutu is breaking the ice for our Poetry Blog here with her parody of that famous "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy we all love from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

"To Hope or Not to Hope"
To hope or not to hope: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler to accept what seems to be
And move on to happenings of a lesser age,
Or to, by keeping hold on a thread of faith latched to the past,
Lighten clouds and dispel despair
Into the annals of vague history unremembered.
To resign – to accept, forget, and sleep
Forever unbothered by dreams of “if” and “perhaps,”
To doubt no more, but live in certainty,
Though it be that of defeat, still that of peace;
Or to will oneself into golden shackles of elusive trust,
Bound eternally to the pensive past
On the watch for a kindle and spark to warm away the mist,
To forever watch and wait,
Hold bated breath for an absent change.
To let be a shattered heart,
To bury the shards where naught can touch them,
To leave them in pieces too small to break again;
Or to gather and assemble the scattered shards,
Meld them together with light and heat
And display the fragile structure again to the skies,
To feel the caress of the gentle breezes
And the freshening frolicking of the wind and rain
Ere again ’tis pierced by lightning deep
And shattered once more.
To endure and forget and pass beyond;
Or to heal, remember, and remain.
For who would choose to stay anchored in yesterday
And strive to find a hidden door
To make today a different today when
By simple swallowing of circumstance
One could gather one’s life in peace and continue on,
If ’twere not that that peace be not peace,
But a curse seeming calm, flaunting benevolence.
For nay, there is no question, there is never question:
To despair – to be but a breathing corpse too frail to resist,
Too palsied to steer life through newer paths,
Slave to fortune, able only to acquiesce –
Is betrayal of the deepest kind, treason against the heart.
To hope – to live – to wager the soul as ’twas meant to be risked
And discover the strength of a single golden glowing thread is,
Indeed, to fulfill the very essence and purpose of existence,
And to fly beyond mundane thought of time and acceptance,
To be free to think, feel, and love as you will.

Oh, and about me and the Poetry Box...

2008-07-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Rose F., and I'm a member of Senior Girl Scout Troop 80-811 of the Girl Scouts of Central and Southern New Jersey. I was also a Publicist for East Brunswick High School's Art and Literary magazine, Folio, for the past two years, and was a member for the past three years. I just graduated from the high school this June. This is a part of my Gold Award Project, called Poetry with Personality, where I am teaching kids and teens about poetry in workshops and creating spaces where they can show their work or share favorite poems with others. I am working with the East Brunswick Public Library and created these blogs for them.

Now, I've had a few people ask me this question-WHY POETRY?!

The reason I decided on working with poetry is this: I love it. Poetry sometimes can seem dull to some people, because they immeadiatly think of rhymes and big words to describe devices used in poetry and think "Ugh, it's just like English class with that teacher...*shudder*" But it's not. I have read and enjoyed many wonderful poems throughout my life, and I have written some as well (or at least, I hope they're good). Once you get past learning all those terms on a vocab list, poetry is fun. It's a way to creatively express yourself. And sometimes it can be easier to write than a story or essay, but can still make a point. I could go on and on about reasons I love poetry, like the fact that there are so many different forms of it you can use, the fact that you can say anything with it, that you can pour out emotions with it, that you can show it to others and see how they relate to it, that anyone can write it, that it's fun to read, but I don't want to bore you with that rant.

In addition to this blog, for my project I am also running a series of workshops for kids, preteens and teens where they can learn about writing poetry.

So if anyone's interested, the Teen Workshop will be sometime in August, I haven't got the official date for it just yet...

Welcome!

2008-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

You've reached the East Brunswick Public Library's Teen Poetry Blog. Here teens (ages 13 and up) can submit poems that they've written or poems they enjoy reading to us and we'll put them up here! All you have to do is email the submission to me, Rose, at ebgirlscout1@verizon.net and I'll put it up...

... So long as you follow a few rules:
1. Nothing harsher than a PG-13 rating. Please. Avoid cussing as much as possible, too. Like, if there is a bad word, replace it with *bleep* or something like that, okay?

2. Please, don't hurt people. I don't want anything here meant to make fun of people or anything. The work here is meant both to be respected and to be respectful.

3. Put a warning if you think that a poem may deal with a sensitive issue others may not want to read about, please. And let me know when you submit it if it does, because I'd put a warning up anyway, but I'd like to hear it from you as well.

Got it?

If you want others to give your work some constructive crit, let me know and I'll say that it's open for crit on the post. Feel free to post a comment saying you like something if you do as well, okay?