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

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

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

by Lulu Rasor, one of our visiting poet rockstars (a former HMSer)

After Wallace Stevens

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.

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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