The following poems were written by students in a creative writing class that took place in Shanghai, China, hosted by the Stanford University EPGY Honors Academy summer program. My students in this class wrote and read stories and poems in English, but most spoke Mandarin as well as other languages. Many of my students were totally fluent in English, while others were still practicing their English spelling and grammar.
Keen
Pointy
Knife-Like
Razor-Sharp
Angled Piece Busts
And Smears Ink Blots
Most Sublime Yellow
With Tiny Little Black
Dark Lines Indented,
In Divinely Wrapped
Peeling Paper which
Flakes Away with Each
Sharpening Within the
Motor with its Grating
Noise Which Grinds at
The Soul, Paper Peels
Away like my Worries
As I Pick up a Pencil
And Write my Sadness
Away like Stardust on a
Blust’ry Eve, Finger Rubs
’Gainst Course Material
Of Sun, Lemon School
Bus, Gor
When my father first saw my mother on stage, he was amazed by how the words flew out of her mouth so naturally. I’ve never seen my mother perform, but in old photographs, she always appears angelic. She had luscious blonde curls and stormy grey eyes. She didn’t have my frizzy brown hair or my big feet. I only have her grey eyes. In these photographs, my father looked like a young prince, with cool brown hair and soft green eyes.
Liquid glass shatters on the sidewalk from the angry sky
Scattering all the pedestrians like ants
They hurry home to the comfort
Of their TV dinners and their television sets
While I walk the streets—
A garbage bag as my raincoat, my heart light
I find Picasso in a puddle
And stories in the sky
Orpheus is playing his lyre tonight
While gentle Chiron nurses his wound
The sky is my storybook
And as I settle myself under a peeling park bench
I see only beauty
My hand moves endlessly
On the piece of paper.
I am writing on and on.
Words spread across the paper rapidly,
Floating like puffy clouds
Pushed by wind
Towards San Francisco.
My thoughts race high and low,
My hand struggles to keep up.
My story is coming to life.
Spin! Spins the disk
Confetti in my face
Swing my leg
Beg to stop
With a colorful song
Mouth worn out shoes
We dance in dread till we are read by another
In an art museum in Chicago
my dad and Van Gogh stare at each other.
On a kitchen table in Sanford
my mom watches me draw.
In the museum gift shop
my dad buys me a print of Starry Night.
At home in my room
Starry Night hangs above my bed,
calming like a space gallery,
yellow,
white,
black,
and blue.
I finger the valves.
They are cold and uninviting to the touch.
I take a breath.
My lips form an embouchure.
I blow.
At first there is noise,
Much noise,
Then the music starts.
It flows through my veins,
Coursing through my body.
I play from the heart.
I love it,
No,
Need it.
Music is me,
I am the music.
I need it,
I want it,
I can’t get enough,
I play until my heart swells
And my body sways.
I feel it in my bones,
I feel it in my toes,
I reach deep,
And pull the music from me.
I have carved truth and beauty into yellowed parchment,
having created something unique, vital, simple, complex, and bottomless
as a fallen flower. The jagged edge of brokenness
intrudes upon my soul, and dusty fingerprints outline
the soul of this poem. The unbroken stretch of time
has not erased these words eclipsing
the sun and moon alike.
What troubles they must have faced; what creative, poetic troubles
would have gnawed on that author—spirit
like moss and ivy on a house!
