poems that Cat wrote.

Katie liked barbies
and I liked jumping off rocks
so we jumped
with their swimsuits & ballgowns
in our pockets until her mom yelled
lunch!! and we feasted
ending always with juice
the flavor of everything red.
we tumbled back outside
dirt-sandcastles under the porch,
battling imaginary pirates,
playing with worms when it rained
and one day she said
where's new york? and one month later
I waved goodbye

the new people in their old house
painted it bluepurple and bulldozed
our rocks into the woods
and I don't know who Katie is
anymore, or even if she found out
about new york. I can’t remember
if her brother played with us,
or if they had a swimming pool
and I wonder if she has forgotten
too.

Inside, Out.

The radiator is whistling, crooked and drunk in its corner. There are millions of captured teakettles inside the coils, screaming to escape its clutches.

There is a man outside on a broken bench, poised with notebook and pen. The sunshine people walking by are impressed that he is a writer. He lets them believe, and makes scribbles and little drawings of the clouds. The sky is hurling angry bits of itself to the ground - he hurries home to tape garbage bags over the windows.

happy birthday.


i called your house
today, to inquire about
plans for your 21^st
and how many bottles of
jameson you’d –
on the third ring my heart
fell out, bouncing sloppily
and disappearing into a shadowy
corner and my eyes
made foreign shapes out of my
bookshelves and armchair,
but light around the borders
and glowing, focusing on the sharp
carved edges of your name on that
speckled marble, catching the light
with a clean, bold finality.

how many years, decades,
can you carry over; a
place setting at easter
for your shimmering memory.
if there are sycamores and elms
toppling to forest floors
and there are no ears around,
it was not a silent effort,
only unacknowledged.
i wonder how many birthday candles
should be illuminating tonight’s
creeping darkness -
and the difference in remembering,
imagining out of respect for you,
and scrambling at holding on
for the sake of me.

- Cat Brousseau

Ketchup and Mustard by Aimee Gagnon

I tried to get the form of the poem to translate into the format of the blog, but this was the best I could get. I just hope that the form still works with the poem.
Enjoy!


Ketchup and Mustard

sandwiches or raw
Ball Parks: Lunch of choice

Pushing, shoving, biting.
Until sneaking
into your trundle
bed. Purple T-Rex
and yellow long
neck covering our

bodies.

You get teased

I tag along, playing
soccer with the boys
slip on slides off
soaring across the yard
before foot makes

contact,

Home run
champ and star catcher.
Batting fourth in line
up, first drafted each year

Softball career
consists of pulling
weeds and hitting two

doubles. Videotaping
your football games:
a testimonial
of accomplishments.

absent from
stands at my swim meets.
Ranked top ten in
class, member of NHS.

boasted thirtieth
percentile, working
for $6.50 to buy
my first car.

receive the beige Nissan
Quest and made college
a five year plan.

Finishing in four,
will attend grad school
In order to receive
half your salary.

Posses a two thousand
dollar plasma TV,

Part of a two year
relationship.

floating
through life with
indifference and ease.

Revisions

Hey all,

I am posting my first Kangaroo Sequins poem! It is the second draft of a poem inspired by reading up on Plate-Tectonics.

Here it goes:

Plate-Tectonics
By: Joshua Kohler

When the Earth shakes with fury,
The sidewalk cracks like chips,
We Find safety in odd places,
Faith put in supports holding memories
Of ancient heights; scars of old.

Here we rest as telephone poles snap,
Twigs under the weight of some newborn giant
Stumbling on interior designed homes
Before venturing downtown, to work where
Buildings fall into heaps of wrecks.

Dust clogs the the air with questions;
Looking toward a vacant sky,
Why does it hurt so much?

But nothing provides solace for the girl without
A home, a family to whisper in her ear,
Ease her pain, stop tears forming rivers
On the broken stone which run and run and run.

Comments welcome!!

Josh

Advanced Creative Writing-Poetry, Spring '07

Poets & Poetry Readers,

This winter/spring has seen the Advanced Poetry Writing class (a.k.a., Clark U's English 208) produce some interesting work. We've written poems on movies and misheard lyrics, memory and imitation. The Maine poet, Wes McNair, was with us in March and did a live-stream audio session with us on "The Use of the Line in Free Verse." He followed this with a Q & A hour. All was wonderfully productive with students asking interesting and prepared questions, and Wes being his wonderfully wise and entertaining self.

As a class, we read through three very different books of poetry: Wes McNair's The Ghost of You and Me, Charles Simic's The World Doesn't End and Rachel Zucker's Eating in the Underworld. I was interested in the way that all of these get at memory and narrative in fantastically different ways--from narrative poems to the surreal to poems written in fragmented notes and diary entries. The students then chose a poem from one of these books to imitate. What follows on this blog are some of those imitations along with other revised poems. With any technological luck (or just the help of Anthony Helm, our tech genius), we will also post audio recordings of students reading their imitation poem along with the model poem. Standby...! Our hope is to explore the relationship between our writings and our readings out loud. You all, our unknown but hopefully, gracious audience, can be the judge of that. We welcome your thoughtful comments.

Help us celebrate the end of this semester by reading and listening to some of our poems. It's been a good time: productive, thoughtful, creative. We've also had some laughs.

Happy April,

Lea Graham
Poet in Residence
English Department
Clark University
Worcester, MA