Class Poetry Slam #2

Here's the poem that I wrote at our second class poetry slam...

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Morning Peace
*
Dew drops form on blades of grass
Turning them shining silver
And as the night grows colder,
The water freezes into frost
*
Waves sing to the shore
Sparkling crests as the sun comes up
Burning fire in the sky
Orange, red, and pink - irreplaceable light
*
Dawn comes slowly
Breathing life into chilled plants
Warming the ripping spiderwebs
Gloomy morning clouds drift in again
*
White lines of the horizon
Trees sigh in the breeze
A lone person walks on the beach
Solitude bringing them peace
*

We were given twelve words again... The ones I used are in italics. The next official poetry slam (Island-wide) is being held at Langley Library on Thursday, April 30 at either 7 or 7:30 PM.

That's all for now.

Bye!

~Cassie

Class Poetry Slam #1

My block class teacher recently started doing poetry slams with his class. The first one we had was on last Monday... Here's my poem:

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Just A Dream
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Ivy cascading down hillsides
Birds chirp in the trees
Talking of the blazing fire
That legend says will come from the sea
*
Waves whisper words to one another
As the sun beats down
Shining light on the sparkling water
While the trees on the shore sway in the breeze
*
Bees and bugs buzz
Their abstract colors hard to see
As the night falls on the ocean
Cool waves of water
Turn to raging flames of heat
*
But as the fire wreaks havoc here
There along the beach
The flames sputter out
And a crying bird says,
"That fright was just a dream."
*

We had twelve words... The ones in italics are the ones that I used in my poem.

The next post is going to be the poem from our second class poetry slam...

Bye!

~Cassie

Brave New Words

Brave New Words was on Saturday (April 18, 2009)! I met people like Matt Gano and Jourdan Keith (who are awesome, by the way). I even got five minutes of stage time... Talk about nerve-wracking! I read five poems: Riddle Poem: Red, Red Rose, Riddle Poem: Slipping Silk, Everlasting Night, Rediscovered Memories, and Nightmares On Fire. The last three were Slam poems.

In the morning, Matt taught a workshop kind of like the one he did the day before (on Friday, both Jourdan and Matt did workshops). He gave us a prompt ("What do you want most in the universe? Nothing material, though, guys") and set us to free write. Yesterday's prompt was "What do you hear when you put your ear to the world?" I ended up writing a fiction thing for that one, and a poem at Brave New Words, though I didn't read it.

Jourdan's workshop on Friday was about Haibun, a form of Haiku. It's like a journal entry with a Haiku in it somewhere. It's usually at the end, though. She told us to look in six directions before we went outside: left, right, forward, behind, up, and in. Then we were to write about what we saw in each of those directions - not much, just a line or two. After we went inside again, she told us to incorporate a line or two into a memory, told in the present tense. It was different than anything I'd ever done before, but I made some connections with what I saw... It was kinda one of those things where you have to be there to understand.

The poems I read are all around somewhere... Red, Red Rose is on this blog, and so Everlasting Night is on my Eighth Grade Project Blog. Slipping Silk was in the April 14th issue of the Everett Herald, in Sarri Gilman's column (I hope I didn't spell her name wrong...). Rediscovered Memories was in the February 4th issue of the South Whidbey Record. I read Nightmares On Fire at a Poetry Slam... Unfortuneately, I forgot which one. The next one is April 30, by the way. It's at Langley Library at 7 P.M.

Yep... So my weekend was very... Active. After Brave New Words (10 A.M. to 5 P.M.), my mom and I left to go to my grandma's eightieth birthday party (6 P.M. to 9 P.M.). I was so tired by the time we finished... Plus, I ate too much at Grandma's party. On Sunday I planted corn, cucumber, zucchini, pea, bean, and sunflower seeds in pots for our garden. I'm not complaining or anything - I actually had a lot of fun. Maybe too much - I'm feeling sleep deprived.

I am so going to bed now.

Bye!

~Cassie

Metaphor Face - Keith Harkin

Metaphor - Face

Applying Metaphor to Facial Features

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Keith Harkin, singer in Celtic Thunder

***

Eyes - His eyes are the turbulent ocean, crashing on the shore.

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Hair - His hair is silken strands of spun gold.

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Ears - His ears are shrouded beneath the veil of golden hair, timid animals peeking out from time to time.

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Mouth - His mouth is a beach: white pearls of teeth and the rolling voice of the waves.

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Nose - His nose is straight - a surfboard.

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Forehead - His forehead is a land veiled by a mist of hair.

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Cheeks - His cheeks are rough, forested hills.

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Teeth - His teeth are pearls at the bottom of the ocean.

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Lips - His lips are night-blooming flowers, carrying his voice through the air.