Memorized Poems

Item #4 on the silly bus reads:

Memorization of poems with young adult themes or suitable for the classroom. (So basically anything within reason.) We will share these once every two weeks. In the beginning, we'll start small. for next week, we'll only have to memorize a 4 line poem. Each week we'll add two lines.

HEH

Memorization of poems (especially 6 page raps) really isn't a problem for me. but the problem is choosing which to memorize. so of course i had to raid my own poetry notebook which is perfect, because i wrote most of them whilst in high school... so they reek of "young adult themes."

so i have chosen one 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 line poem for memorization every two weeks. I'll put them up here when the time comes just so you can read them. all but one is original, and i'll explain that later. but the first two are REALLY easy to remember- mostly because of the rhyme. I didn't title them in my poetry journal. didn't think they needed them. most of my poems don't really have titles unless I think a title important. but i'd rather the poem speak for itself.

ok. so here we go:

Poem 1: 4 lines (due January 16th)

hide behind a smile
and sweet, uncaring eyes
tell me that I'm beautiful
along with all the other lies.



LOVE that one. it's so facetious about love. most of these will be facetious because of certain things that happened in high school. i just thank GOD that the man i was dating at the time wasn't actually IN high school... particularly MY high school. anyways, more on that later.

Poem 2: 6 lines (due January 3oth)

All I can see,
what lies before me
others will not even know.
They see with blind eyes
as hard as they try
to look for a new place to go.

YAY! poems. i'm used to baring my soul via poetry. i've been attending the monthly poetry reading at The Attic Books and Coffee since it began when i was a freshman at SLC. screw all that other crap about being president of the english club for 2 years and every other thing i can think of like public speaking class. reading poetry in front of a group of strangers is like flashing the crowd cam for 5 minutes at any major league baseball game. letting your soul drip from your tongue in front of a group of people who know nothing about you is enough to make your knees buckle and your bladder explode at the most inopportune moment. so all in all, it made me a VERY strong speaker. and when i'm a teacher, i really want my students to attend poetry readings. in fact, i was supposed to go today, but i had way too much crap to do. i miss it. and i usually like to have new material. i hate reading anything twice unless it's really good or i really like it. and i also have the Thirsty Poets- my group of guys who scream poetry to the masses at 11pm on washington street in front of the meyer theatre in downtown GB. yay!

ok. enough poems. back to reader response.