New Submission! "A Wind's Whisper"

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

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"

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...

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!

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?