“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”
–Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poetry is something that I have always loved. I loved the beauty in the simplicity of the words. It wasn’t until recent events did I really start to uncover not only the beauty in the simplicity of the words, but the beauty in the word around us. As cliche as it sounds, poetry is all around us. It is up to the author (us), to unveil the words and transcribe them to spoken words or paper.
One of my favorite things that was shared with us during online instruction was Noami Shihab Nye’s poem “One Boy Told Me.” Noami unveiled the words spoken to her by her son, and transcribed them into written words on paper. The poem that she wrote was as simple as the words that were spoken to her by her young son. This poem is simple, yet hilarious. I loved that she saw the potential of poetry in a young boy’s words.
COVID-19 has been a drastic and horrible event during this time. However, I think that it is kind of ironic that during this time, we are leaving about poetry. Poetry has encouraged me to look at the positive and beautiful things around me. As I sit on my porch with my writers notebook, I bypass the typical poetry that I would write. I stray from the observational and standard things I would write. The things that I write now are abstract thinking. I think back to times that made me happy and contempt. I write about things I love and I’m grateful for. I write about my college experience, as I am trying to be reflective since it is fleeting before my eyes. So thank you, COVID-19 for this happiness you have brought to me.
In the wise words of my FAVORITE poet, Maya Angelou, Still I Rise. In the time of COVID-19, I used Maya Angelous Poem of ‘Still I Rise’, as a mentor poem to borrow some of the poetic forms to write my own during this time.
Still I Rise- Abby Smith You may come through quickly With your deceitful, pitiful eyes You may cancel our graduation But still, with Grace, I'll Rise. Does my optimism upset you? Why are you full of emptiness? Taking away our freedom and toilet paper... 'Cause I walk with full stride, Far away from your overwhelming pettiness Like Doctor's and essential's With the glimpse of hope and certainty of love, Just like joy spread high, Still, we will Rise.
During this time of distancing, I have found a lot of comfort and love in my dogs. Although I am not with them during this time, I find myself writing a lot of poetry about them. I see the beauty in the love that they share with others, as well as to me (even if only over FaceTime). When I was asked to write a ‘So Much Depends Upon’ poem, It was easy for me to write about the friendship that Ellie and Ruby possess with each other, as well as other people. Below is my poem as well as the original poem in which I borrowed the syntactic structure.
As you can tell from my poems, one thing that I find a lot of comfort in are animals. During the week of observational poetry, I observed the National Geographic video about Sea Otters and Box Turtles. While watching the videos, I thought about how I can use them as instructional videos for my students to write poetry. Like me, I think that my students will find comfort in the animals and through collaborative brainstorming, they will be eager to write about the animals. Here are my examples of poems that I wrote after brainstorming….
