Poetry doesn't need to explain, or answer. This is something that I try to get students to embrace, which isn't easy for them to do. High school aged poets pride themselves on how much they think they know. They are taught to be clear, to deliver to the page whatever truth might be in them to bring out to the world. Heavy burden for anyone to carry, I think. Why not let the poem propose its own set of mysteries, I like to ask them. Open yourself up to that, I say. The results can be quite surprising and poets, young or old, can arrive at an artifact that might not otherwise be found.

What I Don't Know
 
Twelve o'clock at night
when the late night TV flickers
in the dark. Late night comedy shows pour
into my sleeping mother's ears.
What will become of us? Will she be happy
in the future? How can I help her?
Will I be able to support and keep myself
happy? Mortician, funeral director, zookeeper?
Is college going to work? Loans, scholarships, grants?
Will my government help us? Can we get
out alive and happy? What will become of
social security? My medicine? Medicaid? Retirement?
My mother wakes. She turns to me and asks,
"Are you okay?"
I reply with dry, tired eyes. "I don't know yet."
I turn to the window. It's dawn.
 
Samantha Bloomer
Western International High School
 
 
 
* * *
 
 
Things I Don’t Know
 
A man walks his dog and my dogs bark
As if ready to jump across the gate.
 
I stare out the window and try to understand
 
Why is it that dogs go after one another?
And why do we try to quiet them down?
 
Rocio Gomez
Western International High School

Through the Mouth of a Puppet

For the past several years now I've helped coordinate a collaboration between InsideOut and the Detroit PuppetArt Theater. Every year I'm amazed by the stories that get told. Touching. Funny. Inventive. Talk about finding your voice as a writer. It's amazing how oftentimes the most interior students become almost other-than when they get to speak through the mouth of a puppet. It's always a sublime way to cap off the end of the school year. 

This year the students at Hanstein Elementary will be performing their puppet plays on May 6th at Noon at the PuppetArt Theater located at 25 East Grand River in downtown Detroit. For more info call (313) 965-5332.

The Motor City, or The Poetry Capital of the World

A poem about a pencil that can walk is clearly a poem driven by a child’s wild sense of invention, but here in the Motor City poems about cars are powered by a necessity to get from one place to the next. It’s true: we are both the stories we tell as well as the cars that we drive. Sometimes, as is the case with “My Car” by Raphael Kirkland, our cars have seen better days. But that doesn’t keep us also from dreaming up the car of our dreams as you can see in “Dream Car” by Sean McCraney and “The Hot Streak” by Deante Smith.


My Car

 
My car is poor.
It has one rim, a left mirror,
a sign that says,
"Why lie, I need a drink!"
The best tires it's ever had were four
cement blocks.
My car can't fly,
it doesn't even have doors to open
to act like it's flying.
My car has a window,
not windows, just a single
window. It used to have a steering wheel.
It runs on gas
but does it really matter.
My car will sit
in the same spot
for as long as the old train station.
If it could talk,
my car would cuss me out.
 
Raphael Kirkland
12^th Grade

Dream Car
 
’96 Impala
all black
24 inch rims
all black
spinning
butterfly doors
lotta bass
black-tint windows
all-white interior
DVD player
24 inch TV
Comcast Cable
Xbox 360
I will call it
Da Oreo.
 
Sean McCraney
12^th Grade
 
 
The Hot Streak
 
The car that can fly.
The car with nobody driving it.
The car with burning wheels.
The car that looks like gold.
The car that is made out of money.
The car that wears shoes.
The car that’s got boosters.
The car that loves math.
The car that became a hero.
The car that looks like a lion.
The car that was on fire.
The car that loves to draw.
The car that goes to the moon.
The car that can lay an egg.
The car that lights up like fireworks.
The car that loves mud.
The car that loves to party.
The car that painted the pig blue.
 
Car of my dreams.
My car.
 
Deante Smith
3^rd Grade

 

 

My Pencil Walks

My Pencil Walks

 

My

pencil

is

an

umbrella

that

can

help

me

walk.

 

My

pencil

is

a

snow

shoe

hare

that

can help

me jump

high in

the sky.

 

My pencil walks

like a

walking

stick that

is my pet.

 

My pencil is a tree

that makes apples.

 

My pencil is a

dog that barks

all night.

 

Patty Lare

2nd Grade

Golightly Educational Center