NAPOMO @ RE - Reading and Archive

At the end of the month, we will commemorate our community's work through a reading and booklet for archives. We hope you will join us for a open mic reading dedication ceremony, April 24th, 4pm at LaBrisa, and that you will return here to engage with poetry at RE through the digital companion that will be posted to this page!

NAPOMO @RE Honorees

The strongest poems in each of the following categories will be chosen for the special honor of being shared with the entire RE community:

9th Grade Poems: "Untitled" by Quinnard Mays and " A Sea Shanty" by Daniel Depass-Jurberg
10th Grade Poem: "A Banana Seed" by Felix Kulkarni
11th Grade Poem: "Untitled" Patrick Keedy Brown
12th Grade Poem: "Ahava" by Beatriz Lindemann
Professional Community Poem: "The Ballad of Bobby Ingram" by John Hamm, "Mi Ninera" by Eric LeFebvre, "Untitled" by Dr. John Ermer
Colors of the City Poems: "Just Another Drive Back from Practice" by Miguel Kumar, "Metro Rail Transfer 6:33am" Dr. Emily Grace
Roots and Routes: "The Islands Speak" Alec Martinez Bolivar
Currents and Connections: "Where the Currents Meet" by Sabine Wolfensberger

9th Grade Poem

Untitled

Quinnard Mays ‘28

Girl, you’re just like a flower your roots have a hold on me it has power.

I get poked by your thorns a feeling so sweet yet so sour.

I had my chance to water you but I never let you grow.

It was hard for me to show my love and affection so I understand why you had to let go.

But still, my love for you goes way past the cosmos.

I am still waiting for my rose to come back home.

Some say it’s stupid and to just move on

But I can’t give up on you no I can’t lose my day one.

As your petals sway in the calm spring breeze.

The scent of your petals reminds me of old memories.

I hope that we don’t grow apart.

I still hold you dear to my heart.

And I have hope that one day we can restart.

Because if we do.

I KNOW we can grow something new.

I just need to have your trust.

I really really, hope not all your love turned into dust.

If it hasn’t then I’ll sit and wait with no problem.

Waiting for our love to once again blossom.

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

So I’ll sit and wait while someone else waters you and let you grow.

And I hope that his love truly shows.

I hope he loves you more than you could ever know.

But even then I still won’t let my rose go.

A Sea Shanty

By Daniel Depass-Jurberg ‘28

(Loosely sung to the rhythm of Bob Dylan's "The Times They are A-Changing")

See the port, the ships, the boats, and the land?

A newfound hope is found in our hands,

and when souls in our feet touch the lukewarm sand,

We all become one, no one, no man, and

some bellow from the depths where nobody can

save them, so God please lend'em a hand.

All hatred, all spite is righteously banned,

We all form a ship that is formally manned,

So come one, come all, live lives that aren’t bland,

We follow no orders, we meet no demands.

Let’s write a hist'ry where you’re in command,

And find new ports, new ships, and new land.

10th Grade Poem

A Banana Seed

by Felix Kulkarni ‘27

A kindergarten teacher who remembers you wanted to be the flash, 8 years after you told her;

A fourth grade teacher who called all the class separate foods and you’ll never forget you were a carrot and your best friend was a mochi;

A fifth grade teacher who you never got to know because of a pandemic;

A sixth grade teacher who you lied to about your reading logs while your friends slept with their zoom cameras off;

An eighth grade teacher who called you your brother's name on the first day of school—even though you looked nothing alike, and it was four years since she taught him.

A black boy from Trinidad who would sing she get wicked in the corner of English class;

A white boy from Bulgaria whose brother got ignored asking for a girl’s phone number on the corner of the sidewalk;

A Japanese boy who played Minecraft with you everyday but you guys never kept the same world for more than a week;

A fellow Brasileiro who went over to your house everyday in fourth grade—and the days he wasn’t at your house, you were at his;

A fellow Indian who could beat you in an arm wrestle even when you used both arms;

An American boy you talked with during lunch about basketball because it was too snowy to play;

A Chinese boy who looked at your lips everyday like they were a box of ramen noodles;

A Chinese boy who yelled at you for messing up a pass on the volleyball team he begged you to join;

An Indian boy who nobody ever caught in manhunt.

Your youngest older brother who put a pizza in the microwave for five minutes and triggered the smoke detector;

Your oldest older brother who you literally never beat in a ping pong game;

Your youngest older sister who drank enough coffee in high school to drain any cacao forest in Brazil;

Your oldest older sister whose name you could sing.

A Citgo sign you passed everyday on the way to Taekwondo;

A dojo that you called home for an hour a day, everyday, for five years;

A basketball court that was really just a person's garage;

A soccer field that had more thorns than a Floridian forest;

A TD Garden where you watched Miami ruin your weekend;

A cinema where you watched Jimmy Butler’s potential series winning three point shot hit the rim's end.

Roots and routes built in Beantown;

Roots and routes built upon a city on a hill;

Roots and routes built in Boston;

Lord knows if roots and routes sprout—or if they turn right: into duds.

11th Grade Poem

Untitled

by Patrick Keedy Brown ‘26

Sunsets always look more beautiful

over a mini-golf course. It’s that

Americana feeling, the past in the

putt and the future still on the horizon,

gleaming orange, sinking out over

the manicured green. Where an

open road was an invitation, an

assurance that America would still

shine through, and it makes you ask

if cowboys are still real, somewhere.

12th Grade Poem

Ahava

by Beatriz Lindemann ‘25

Child of the earth

Her long limbs,

her roots,

grounded in love

Deep,

complicated,

and stubborn

like the ocean’s tides

Her arms extend,

oars connecting her with the salty panacea below

She observes the Greenwich willow,

one day hoping to sway and surrender to the wind

To the universe

She vows to let go

One day

Her heartbeat is in sync,

with the waves and winds of Colombia

December in the City of Eternal Spring

The Western Wall

Ahava

Her homecoming in The Holy City

Her father’s fears and dreams,

she has

They both see in pink

B and G might not be the same,

but they certainly rhyme

Her words make her the sun

Undeniable light

She fills the pages with the conversations,

she has with herself

A sanctuary for her thoughts,

insecurities and aspirations mingling freely

Bubbles overflow through her laughs

Authenticity wells in her eyes

What a crybaby she is.

Once she embraces,

the labels lose their shame

As she metamorphosizes,

she releases fear

Love is what she comes back to when she feels lost

Professional Community Poems

The Ballad of Bobby Ingram October, 2019

by John Hamm - Professional Community

Just like his father before him, he strummed and sang the blues

Somethin told me to tune in; I hadn’t heard the news

Bobby finally ended his very last song, and carried it to heaven that day

And the skies were busy 'bove the Grove they say, and Dorian stayed away.

Dorian was as big of a storm, we'd seen in a hundred years

Headed straight west toward Coconut Grove, her path a' drenched in tears

Bobby was at home to say his last goodbyes- in his own particular way

And the skies were open on his passing day, and Dorian stayed at bay

Everybody knew him, everybody came ,

for sixty years he sang his songs, and always stayed the same.

Rough and tough and gruff and sweet, none of us could stay away,

and the skies were busy 'bove the Grove that day, and Dorian made no play.

The Grove was a'busy baggin' and a'boardin' , another dangerous storm.

We didnt know there was naught to fear, he had one more chance to perform.

As he rose up to heaven above he stared her down and blew her away

And the skies were busy 'bove the Grove that day and Dorian turned away

Because the skies were blessed 'bove the Grove that day, and Dorian turned away.

Untitled

by: Dr. John Ermer - Professional Community

It all happened.

instant, frustration

foxhole that night,

shadows of the coming day

I did not understand.

Your girlfriend. My girlfriend. Everybody’s sweet little

vapors,

rituals that preceded

confession

but listen

“Forget it.”

Mi Ninera

by Eric Lefebvre - Professional Community

Born and raised in the county of Dade.

A blonde bundle of joy loaded into the Ford Fairmont and driven across the canal.

Dropped off at a small apartment off the Palmetto.

Hueles a pan?

The furniture is covered in plastic.

The apartment is spotless.

Arroz con pollo hecho con cerveza.

Natilla filling empty margarin containers with lots of cinnamon on top.

There is so much love in such a small place.

So many pictures of my tiny face.

Gracias por el carino Cuca.

Colors of the City Poems

Metro Rail Transfer 6:33 AM

by Dr. Emily Grace - Professional Community

soot splashed concrete

grey and dark

spray-paint letters

white and bubbles

well trodden tile

rust and slick

fingerless gloves

neon and sweat-filled

far away giants

glimmer and silver

the night fades

purple and distant

celestial rays

yellow and orange

look at the sky

exhale

pink

"Just Another Drive Back from Practice"

by Miguel Kumar ‘25

Driving over the bridge,

Intense sonder keeps me busy,

As I stare up at the guava jelly-infused sunset,

And think how sad that a part of me wants to leave,

How awful that I've had enough of this,

How brutal the truth that I'm moving away.

Driving over the bridge,

In horrible routine,

I know nothing more than this lavender clouded sky,

And yet I assume there is something more to be had

In corners of the world without guava and lavender to compare the sky to,

Without the things I know and love to love.

Driving over the bridge,

Intense sonder keeps me busy,

As I stare up to colors that can only exist here,

And secretly hope I'll be back.

Roots and Routes Poem

The Islands Speak

by Alec Martinez-Bolivar ‘27

Tall trees stretch their fingers toward the endless blue sky,

The humid air clings to me, a second skin, warm and heavy,

Green leaves shimmer, emeralds flickering in the shifting light,

Dead trees lie scattered like fallen warriors in the night,

Spider webs hang, like delicate bridges spun by unseen hands.

The trees whisper their secrets to the wind, ancient tongues in the breeze,

Fallen coconuts lie below, like memories from a distant past,

Lizards glide through the branches, shadows slipping between worlds,

The green grass beneath me, a cool embrace, the earth’s breath against my skin.

The island speaks in silent stories,

Each branch a page torn from time’s endless book,

And the spider spins its web, stitching life’s grand tapestry,

And I stand still, a single thread woven into the island’s living fabric.

Currents and Connections Poems

Where the Currents Meet

by Sabine Wolfensberger ‘27

Miami is a city of bridges,

a place where the past never stays behind.

Here, the salt air carries the weight

of stories:

the ones that stayed,

the ones that fled,

the ones still being written.

In the streets,

the wind is a poet,

whispering across the skin of the world,

a language untranslatable,

yet understood by all who listen—

a rhythm born of need and survival,

of becoming, of belonging.

The water, thick with history,

laps at the feet of the present.

Cuban coffee spills into hands that ache

from too many years waiting,

waiting for a country

that doesn’t call them home,

but a city that does.

The horizon bends like a question,

a crossroads where tomorrow meets today.

It pulls in the desperate and the hopeful,

swirls them in the current,

and tells them to speak,

to find their place in the wave

or be swallowed by it.

And yet, despite the noise,

the chaos of stories colliding,

there is a quiet truth—

Miami, in all its contradictions,

is a place of connection.

It is the meeting place of all the currents that never cease,

flowing together,

shaping each other in the dance of time

Submission Data

Visit this space to watch our community write all throughout the month of April! We'll keep track of and share statistics that will then be visually represented in the physical archive .