Limited

Limited by, Carly Farkas

I Am living life peacefully like a dove flying in the clear blue sky

I Believe everything happens for a reason

I Close my closet doors every night because I’m still scared of the monsters

I Dance, but only when I’m forced to

I Eventually learned how to drive a boat when I was 10 years old

I Flew towards Israel until we had to turn around because the plane was broken

I Go to the city and give turkeys to the homeless on thanksgiving

I Have heard the trickling sound of water when the fossit isn’t fully shut off

I Imagine what the world would be like if everything was perfect

I Jump when I’m scared

I Knew I shouldn’t have pierced my own ears, but I did it anyways

I Littered a few times when there was no other place for the garbage

I Make mistakes, which makes me human

I Never choose the easy way out because I prefer to complicate the task

I Only cry when I have to

I Prefer to say my birthday is in winter, but it’s really the fall part of December

I Quickly bike along the streets like Lance Armstrong

I Ride my snowboard down the mountain in the winter

I Spend my summers at Camp Wayne

I Travel out to the Hamptons with my family as often as we can

I Used to unroll toilet paper rolls when I was little

I Vacuumed my pacifiers when I was too old to use them

I Wish I could take back my mistakes, but at the same time, they’ve formed who I am

I Xerox my hands and feet when I’m bored

I Yawn when I’m tired, tired enough that I can sleep for hours, wake up and yawn again

I Zoomed passed the other cars when I was driving on the highway

I Am living life peacefully like a dove flying in the clear blue sky and

I Believe everything happens for a reason

A Reflection on Limited

It my first full week of 11^th grade, and throughout the week all my teachers were teaching lessons and giving textbook homework, except English. I would head to English knowing that I was learning something new, in a fun way. Writing poems, to me, is something I enjoy.

Mr. Daszenski had said in class that we will be free writing in class to form ideas and a base for our poems, but I took that differently. I wrote about specific moments in my life that I enjoyed because I knew what I wanted to write from the start. My thought was to write random moments in my life that I enjoyed, or moments that stuck with me. I had completed this third draft with the writing style of scrambled memories all over, and when I read it to myself, it wasn’t as strong as it could be. The idea of having moments scrambled was something I liked, but I felt it needed some kind of organization. I tried to make it work by changing different parts of the poem, but in the end, I had thought to follow the alphabet. At first it seemed like a great idea, but then thinking more into it, it became worse and worse. As I wrote one line for ever letter of the alphabet, I noticed I was Limited in what I could write because it only gave me a certain amount of lines, and words to use. Then, once I completed the poem, and I read it aloud, I enjoyed the way it sounded and thought that the memories in my life that I put in were significant and all of them meant something to me. In fact, I had used most of the lines from my first and second drafts.

Once my poem was completed, I had called it, My Life Scrambled in an Orderly Fashion, which really explained the poem. Although Limited fit the title because it was limited in what I could write, it really was my life scrambled within a poem, but in an orderly fashion because of the alphabet.

Although I am not a strong writer, I believe this poem has a lot of meaning to it and it really describes who I am, and what I do. My favorite line is “I Close my closet doors every night because I’m still scared of the monsters.” This line is what describes my childhood, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, it can even describe me now. Although I don’t believe monsters are real, I still get scared when my closet door is open at night. When I was little I used to have a sign on my closet saying “No Monsters Allowed,” but I would think they were there anyways. We’re in the process of building a new house and my dad made sure that my closet doors are not facing my bed, because he knew, I would have to get up and close the door every night.

Poetry is something I enjoy to write, especially when it rhymes, because of the same reason I like this poem. When people write poetry, it is as if they are limited because they can only use certain words that rhyme, while free verse can cause you to write anything. Since we weren’t really supposed to use the rhyming technique, I decided to challenge myself by making this poem limited as well.

My First Memory

I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I had my first memory.

I was two years old.

I can remember when my family and I first came into that apartment.

It belonged to my grandparents.

I can remember the apartment so clearly as if I’m still there.

I can visualize a kitchen on the left and a pantry on the right.

I can see a long hallway that led straight into their bedroom that had guest rooms and closets along the way and a big grandfather clock.

I can see the living room with a mirror hanging above a wooden framed glass table with pictures and a decorative vase on top next to it.

I can see a wooden desk right next to it with a lamp on top and bills all over the desk.

I can see two couches with flower embroidery and a sea-foam colored chair.

I can see my grandpa sitting on the sea-foam colored chair, reading the newspaper with his wooden cane by his side while watching the stock channel on TV, and my dad sitting on the living room couch holding my brother and I.

I can see my grandma and mom cooking in the kitchen.

I can still remember the overwhelming smell of antique furniture when you first walk in.

I can still remember the scent of my grandma’s Mandel bread at night and French Toast in the morning.

I can still hear the grandfather clock chime every hour.

I can still hear my grandpa’s hoarse voice calling my name.

I can still remember the feeling of being held by him.

I can still remember the happiness I felt to have all the attention focused on me.

I can still remember playing with my grandpa on the living room floor.

I can still remember saying goodbye to my grandparents not knowing it would be the last time I ever saw my grandpa again.

A Reflection on My First Memory

I have never really wrote a reflection in response to my own work before but there was a lot of work that went into this poem. I first got the idea to write this poem from my English teacher Mr. Daszenski as he was just throwing ideas out to the class about topics to write about. At first I had a hard time choosing a topic I wanted to write about but at the moment he mentioned, “your first memory” something in my brain just clicked and I just started writing away. It was as if I had this whole poem memorized in my head and I was just copying it down onto paper.

I’m guessing that I wrote about this particular memory because I’ve had lots of changes in my life this past year from my grandma getting sick and being put into a nursing home, to just going through her belongings in her apartment like pictures, and other documents. After I had my first draft done I felt like it was missing something so I decided to cut and add some parts into the poem. As I was writing my poem I just started daydreaming and my mind went into a trance. I was thinking about so many things at once and somehow I just thought of my grandpa and decided to add some stuff about my grandpa and the old apartment they used to live in. It brought back so many good memories.

When I was done with the essay I showed it to my dad and he just gave me this look like wow and at the same time a look of regret that I didn’t have the chance to get to know my grandpa better. I could see that there were tears in his eyes and it just hit me that I’ve never really written something with so much passion before. I feel that memory of seeing my grandpa for the last time really just “hits the ball out of the park” when people say that you should be thankful for what you have and cherish every moment you have with your loved ones. I think that’s very important and people should be thankful for what they have.

Found Poem

Obstacles to overcome
Changes to implement
Quickly ahead
The tempest steps
east
north
west
south
Inquirer directions
Increase work quality
Events current
Loves Living

A Reflection on Directions
People always need directions; just like directions about a found poem. A found poem is when you take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. At first I was very confused about how this would make a poem but I followed the directions. I got a grammar sheet, and I had to fine words that draw my attention.
It was very difficult to fine words since a lot of the words did not draw my attention. On the other hand, the easy part was making a poem that makes no sense and also the easy part was putting it all together. My found poem has strong word in it and words that have to do with directions. The tone of my poem is kinda confusing and shocking in the way that you feel really confused. I trying making the poem make sense but it was to hard so I just made it make no sense. What my poem says is that when there are problems, you have to be very shrewd and find the directions to start loving to live.
I followed that ruled to the point I think, I did not add any extraneous words, it sounds good, the words were in order and all dead words were removed. I am very pleased with my poem, it turned out better than I thought. Since when I first got the project I thought it would be a debacle but it turned out to be really good. I like the opening line of my found poem, obstacles to overcome, since every person deals with problems to overcome. One part that I don’t like is that, I could not find more words to use in my found poem.
A found poem is like a thought, people have a thought and then they take things from the thought and make it into an idea. This is the same thing with a found poem, we start with a piece of writing and take words for the writing, turn it into a poem.

Summer: a poem

Summer is what we're waiting for

each day, we all count down

The beach, flip flops, shorts and ices will soon be all around.

Junior year will be over

we will celebrate for days

APs, SATs, ACTs, we will be glad to rid these ways.

Bring out the convertibles, the bicycles the tricycles and more.

The skateboards, the surfboards, laying out by the sandy shore.

The sun makes all the ghosts turn a miraculous shade of bronze, just being in the summer sun is what every one wants.

no more stress

no more tests!

what else could be better?

two months to yourself to relax and get your head together.

It seems like summer is going to be the best

too bad i still have around 500 tests

After all of these exams, summer will officially begin

I think we can all agree we cannot wait till then

Hurry up and get here already, summer two thousand and ten!

My Year

When the year started

I thought it would be easy

But I was wrong.

Joining Chem honors

Was a really big mistake

The teacher was bad.

I also had sports

Which i am not done with yet

I need a big break.

Just eleven more days

Until this year is over

Got to go do work...

By Eli. K

Found Poem :)

Posted like silent sentinels all

Around town. How then this?

Are the green fields gone?

Crowds..pacing, water, inlanders,

Lanes and alleys, streets

And avenues; magnetic. Take almost

Any path you please

Legs

Region

Desert

Experiment

Yes, as everyone knows, meditation

And water are wedded for ever

But here is an artist; poor

Invest, pedestrian.

Did you yourself feel such a

Mystical vibration?

ABC'S of music --dana levine

Amilli

Best I ever had

Crush

Do you rememember

Empire state of mind

Freakshow

Good girls gone bad

Heels over head

I love you

Just want to be with you

Kryptonite

Lollipop (remix)

Mrs. officer

No air

One time

Queen

Run this town

Starstruckk

Tiktok

Use somebody

Vegas skies

What I do

X and y

Yeah!

Zanzibar

What happened late night on Wednesday?

To escape under the pressure,

Lets have a boogie night

at Paris hotel?

Gladiator kissed

Cleopatra.

Law students disguised as

Ganstas

Spiderman danced with

evil mermaid.

X-man asked out with

witch Sabrina.

Power Rangers crushed on

naked Sponge Bob.

Sh!

Dont reveal secrets of these love affairs.

- Heather Park

Found Poem + Reflection

Cold Sweat

His eyes open slowly

and look down.

Left elbow up on the arm rest.

A patch of dark blood on the spring faucet of the cooler.

Wound inside of his shirt.

The water runs down his chin.

Pack of cigarettes in his pocket,

blood stained, clean.

Match,

lights,

deep drag,

smoke-out in the swivel chair.

The sounds stop,

he presses the button,

begins to speak.

Murder, check, check, double check.

Cold Killer, you picked wrong.

The purpose of a found poem is to find beautiful poetry in everyday language. You have to find the diamond in the rough polish it and present it. I found it kind of difficult, at first, to create a found poem out of random words. But then I read the piece and tried to understand the mood of the piece and the message of the piece of writing. My piece of writing was from what seemed to be a spy- agent type novel about murder and deception. The actual passage was about when the character struggles through a wounded injury and in his painful desperation fumbles for a pack of cigarettes.

I tried to convey a fearful struggling tone but one that was also confident, and headstrong at the same time, to convey a message of bravery and true stoicism two qualities that every good agent- spy should have. My poem is describing what the agent is going through. However on a deeper level, I hope the reader understands how the agent feels, and how the agent gains hope throughout the poem right around the same time he is reaching for his cigarettes.

I am all around pleased with how my poem turned out however, there are things I would want to revise given the proper time and freedom with words. I don't like how the beginning of my poem is very repetitive always describing what the character is doing at the time with no real break. I like the middle to end part very much. It is a little ambiguous but I feel conveys a good point, it goes from the turning point of the poem and shows how the agent regains his agent cool and continues on being an agent. Sort of like how James Bond recuperates after a big fight with the bad guy but then immediately returns to being amazing.

I followed the rules extremely closely, everything in the poem was in the passage, the words are in the order I found them and every word there serves a purpose. I really feel like I deserve an "A” for this. The breaking I used with the one word lines serve to break up the poem. Each line is supposed to portray a different aspect of the poem. Much like how I pieced the poem from random words. Also the title is ironic within itself. It is ironic because even though the agent nearly just got killed it is the cigarettes that are killing him. The title was supposed to show how when the agent probably blames all his near death experiences on his job they are actually his fault for choosing such a hectic job and lifestyle and smoking cigarettes in addition to that.

Best Friend

you used to be my best friend,

now look what happened.

that special bond no longer exists

there is a part of me missing

i guess its true

that you dont know what you got,

till its gone.

now i know

what isnt there

the new person that stands in your shoes

this friendship starts to feel forced

i dont know if its worth it

those words you said

stick in the back of my mind

i try to get past it

a reoccurring bump in the road

more fights than laughs

maybe one day

we'll go back

back to when it was good

Alex Doreste

Found Poem

Manufactured Dreams

A hundred faces
Those of a hero, a prophet, a peasant, a dying soldier,
Don't agree for the sake of completeness.
While they feel much less sure
About true objects of their dream factory.
Arrogance and ruthlessness and lowered consequence,
Invites dreaming to rekindle
But people are quick to reject messages
Because they don't agree with satisfying mass desires.
Now it's fairly evident that
Daydreams rise to towering heights,
The result was
Amazing.

Lips

Pink with passion

With imprints like light carvings

Smooth like leather

With its creased lines

Soft like a plush pillow

That almost melts around your head

Although sometimes dry

From thirst

Sandy

Crackly

When parched

Harsh and hard

But smooth when moist

Succulent

Like ripe, juicy fruits

Curved on the bottom

With "camel" bumps on top

Together the top and bottom look like a sombrero

The bottom bending up

The top creating two hills

First like a flat plain

Then an increased slope to the peak and back down

Repeated twice; two light arches are formed

Above a curved meniscus

Like islands sticking out of the water

Weaving lines are light, gently drawn, seen all over

As flexible as clay

Bending and forming different shapes

A point of connection

Full of lust