Poetry KaBaam!
We held the Umpteenth Annual HMS Poetry KaBaam will be held VIRTUALLY on Wednesday, April 28th at 3 PM
Poets and those who love poetry will gathered to hear and interactively respond to LIVE POETRY, featuring former HMS Students Lulu Rasor and Amanda Dettman.
(Image above by Ava Fox)
On this page, we will host some poems performed by their authors, to great acclaim.
Many thanks to ALL who attended.
THE
LEAF’S
JOURNEY
by Ellis Graham
ITS JOURNEY IS UKNOWN
OR MAYBE THIS HAPPENED
A CATERPILLAR HUNG IN ITS CACOON ON THAT LEAF
A BUG BROUGHT THAT LEAF TO ITS TUNNELS
A SNOWSTORM COVERED THAT LEAF ALL WINTER
THAT LEAF THAT IS NOW GETTING BLOWN INTO MY FACE OR MAYBE
THAT LEAF WAS THE LAST TO STAY ON A TREE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
THEN GOT BLOWN TO MAINE ONLY TO BE COVERED IN THE FACE BY SNOW
THAT LEAF THAT WAS UNCOVERED JUST A WEEK AGO
THAT IS NOW BLOWING IN MY FACE.
OR MAYBE THAT LEAF WAS LATE TO BLOOM EARLY TO FALL THAT LEAF WAS STUCK
IN A GUTTER AND THEN THE SNOW COVERED IT AND WHEN IT MELTED THE LEAF
WAS SENT UNDERGROUND TO FIND OUT THAT IT WAS SENT TO THE RIVER THAT
LEAF WAS THEN WASHED UP ONTO SHORE BLOWN INTO MY YARD NOW BLOWING IN
MY FACE.
OR MAYBE THAT LEAF WAS THE LAST TO BLOOM THE FIRST TO FALL AND THEN JUST
LAID WAITING UNTIL SPRING
WHERE IT WAS FOUND BLOWING IN MY FACE
OR MAYBE THAT LEAF IS A BUD ON A TREE.
THAT HASNT BLOOMED YET
WAITING TO EMERGE
TO MAKE
THE
WORLD
SPRING
AGAIN!
The Show Is Over
by Maya Faulstich
I've always been afraid of fireworks
Not because of the bright bold blinding colors
Not because of the loud split-second
crack
echoing throughout the night sky
No
It's not the big boom that makes my fists clench tight,
it's not the little sparks
showering me like sea-spray that make me squeeze my eyes shut with fright
While my family cheers along with the crowd
my eyes blur out the sparkling show
My gaze focuses
upon the heavy ominous cloud
of smoke
Drifting
Slowly
Away
Away from the stunning colors that have them all hypnotized
Back behind the curtain that draws the line between the performance and backstage
Visions
swarm my head
Dark
humid
air so polluted you can't see past your coughing neighbor
A world
without nature
A sky
without stars
How are the people so blinded that they can only see the dazzling illusion
of Bright Booming Colors?
They ooh and ah and in their awe
They forget
That beautiful things can be made by ugly
Every perfect utopia has a twisted dystopia hidden inside
And when I look behind
the flashing colors
See beyond
the booms and bangs
Gaze into the dark starless sky
And watch
the cloud of smoke
I reach
But there's nothing to grab
Just
an
empty
sky
And the visitors picking up their picnic blankets
The show is over
But I still sit there
watching
the heavy ominous cloud
of smoke
Drifting
Slowly
Away
Beyond m y c o n t r o l
I remember 2020
by Charlotte Slayton
I remember 2020
I started 2020 with a broken arm and I thought that was the worst thing
I had 1 friend even before
I didn’t want to go to school
I stopped wearing my fun outfits, I wore black pants and a plain shirt...every day
I remember the worst day of my life
The day school closed
The day everything closed, Friday the 13
I remember being excited to stay home for 2 weeks
and then go back to school after
I remember having a schedule in March
I remember leaving the schedule in April
I remember biking in the rain with my neighbors because we had nothing better to do
I remember getting up doing my school work and then going back to bed
I was so depressed I thought I lost everything
There were days I didn’t feel the need to get out of bed but I pushed through those days
The year 2020 was the worst year of my life
Or so I thought
I remember the euphoria of school being over and it being summer
Summer changed everything I played with my neighbors every day
I made new friendships with my old friends
I had a bubble, I had people that were worth getting up for,
My best friend and my neighbors
I remember playing in the pool with my friends
I remember Camp YK (Yarmouth Kids)
The camp with all of the neighborhood kids in our garage
I always had a smile on my face
I remember swinging on my next-door neighbor’s swing for hours
I remember thinking about my school year
I remember getting sucked back into the spring of 2020
I remember having to snap out of it
I had to live in present not the past
School was the only structure in my life
2021 is going to be the best
I will make sure of it.
Thank you
Six Ways of Looking at the Ocean When You’re In Ohio
Six Ways of Looking at the Ocean When You’re In Ohio
by Lulu Rasor, one of our visiting poet rockstars (a former HMSer)
After Wallace Stevens
i.
Swept flat by rain,
the unmown campus lawn almost looks like eelgrass combed straight by the tide’s receding sigh.
ii.
Pour a paper packet of salt into a scuffed dining hall cup, and I could hold the sea, encased in plastic,
between two hands.
Not even Moses
could boast such mastery.
iii.
I see the ebb of tides,
their steady fall back
and reverse,
in the stripped-bare
November corn fields
and the returning verdant wave that coaxes brittle emptiness into swaying summer fields.
iv.
You’d think I could squint
and the blur of my eyelashes
would transform lakes into seas,
but the smell is far too wrong–
ripe fish and sun-curdled mud,
flat without that relentless, salty tug.
v.
I think I could get lost just the same
amidst rolling fields of corn, thrashing through stiff golden stalks, like up and down and left and right are just a language
I knew long ago
but no longer resides
in the curve of my mouth.
vi.
The shush of car tires on pavement
can become the caress of waves on shore– just pretend all rivers of concrete
make their way to the sea eventually,
just as you will find your way back
to her cold and careless caress.
Ruby by the River
a sestet by Mr. Warshaw and Ms. Agell
Though snowy in the forest, my chapped hand cradles a sunny pink treasure
a measure of summer, some sweetness amidst this cruel ice
Blue-white Kennebec crystals join Florida's golden spheres.
The sun has laid this golden egg, a morsel of light, a pleasure
In silent friendship, let's share the slices
A grapefruit! As we sit and watch for deer.
From a Shy Poet who ALMOST read this aloud
(Thanks Evie L)
We are the people
We are diverse
We are beautiful
We are us
We don’t need anyone to label or define us, or label or define anyone else
And we don’t need to label or define ourselves
If there was no diversity
There would be no world
No friends holding hands
Black
White
All skin colors
All hearts
Come together in our world
Because we are not afraid of change
Change shapes our world
To make it what it is
Broken
Beautiful
CONNECTED
Black Lives Matter
Crab Canon by Coltrane Vitalius gr 6 (he couldn't make it to the KaBaam, but meant to)
NOTE: Read this poem the usual way. THEN, read it from the bottom up!
School is a bad thing.
I do not believe that
Education is necessary.
It is widely believed that
School is a waste of time.
No one should think that
Reading is helpful.
Everyone knows that
Math is useless.
It just isn’t true that
Kids need to learn.
It’s widely known that
School is a waste of money.
No one thinks that
We kids need education.
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