On answer: poetry brings us into contact with the unknown. It asks us to step outside of ourselves. It asks us to use our imaginations to become other than we are.
In Sylvia Plath's "The Mirror," the mirror tells us its story. It is not the normal person, the "I," that speaks, but the mirror speaking to the person who looks into it each day. The mirror is what frames the "I," gives it a place. The mirror is an "it."
In the following poems, the students adopt the perspective of inhuman entities. They write as kites, as mouse traps, as TVs--even as time itself.
In the best poems, the students really do step outside of themselves. They leave the "I" world behind, and inhabit the world of "it." Notice how the speaker of "The Shoe" cries "my laces out" and dreams of becoming a basketball sneaker, because the work is less. Notice how the chalk in "A Day in the Life of a Piece of Chalk" observes the teacher in the classroom after the children have left. Notice the intimacy of the mouse trap's report in "Old Fashioned." It sees what we choose not to see. It does a job we ourselves do not want to do. Notice the sarcasm in the last line: the mouse trap is commenting on its own work ironically. Similarly, in "Flying Prisoner," the kite is captive twice-over. First, it is prevented from flying away by its string. But later, its also put in storage. A captivity that it hates and one that, by comparison, is less bad. This is what it means to adopt the perspective of a kite, to make your "I" an "it."
Dorothy
Room 112 – 7th Grade
Old Fashioned
I sit in the corner, ready.
My plan? Watch and wait.
A mouse wanders by.
I sit docilely.
I mean no harm.
Have some food.
The mouse edges toward my bait.
Slower, than attacking.
Snap! Aha!
The mouse’s tail. Cutting tightly.
I hold on with my life.
Scrambles. It wants to live.
I grip it. Doing my job.
me, throwing away my catch.
Such a proud day’s work.
Jia
Room 112 – 7th Grade
I can soar above the skies
Dancing with the birds
Carried by the whistling winds around me
I dash along the white feather clouds
Joyous but never free
A lock that will forever trap me
In the glorious days of summer I will fly
But I will be stored away when the days shrink back
And in this dark prison I will lay until the cold subsides again
Marisol
Room 109 (7th Grade)
Am I that cute or ugly?
Do you want to buy me?
NO! NO! NO! Wait, wait
comeback please!
Com’on don’t
be a mama’s boy.
Buy me! BUY me!
I can be quiet or loud.
Oh! You buy my opponent.
No wonder those guys are selling
like popsicles on the Fourth of July!
People always go for Mr. Boring or Mr. Ignorant.
No wonder your country’s run
by a wanna-be dictator!
O well, I guess I’ll sit
here until tomorrow when
they put me in boxes & garbage me!
Ahhhhhh! Life’s so not fair.
People use me, then abuse me.
People wear me, then declare me old.
People say they love me thn
give me a ruba-dub-dub.
I can keep you warm
when it’s cold outside.
People’s upper bodies are held in me.
Parents tell you to not sell your style out to me.
I can be blue, yellow, orange and black.
I can be green, pink, or even mis-matched!
But can I keep you warm all the time?
Please ask yourself before you yell “that’s mine!”
Room 109 (7th Grade)
If I am not around, everything is dark.
Switch me on and I’ll shine you up.
The sun is my friend.
We both are bright.
I help people see in the night.
The darkness fears me.
When I come out suddenly, people block their faces.
I am needed all over the planet.
I shine bright.
Fahad
Room 124 (8th Grade)
I collect what mere humans call garbage.
One man’s trash is my treasure.
I see everything people try to get rid of.
Evidence, garbage, and even rare valuables.
Everyday I am filled, and weekly emptied.
I am the best friend of hungry scavengers
and feed them generously.
I rule the garbage truck, and am the greatest collector.
as a bucket of crap.
They fill me with stuff no one can imagine.
I feel ashamed and disgusted
and wish I was used for something else.
My brothers and sisters belong to neighbors all
around the world. We all feel the same.
we are collected in a truck and go to where
I meet my entire family.
Birds try to peck at us, and machines
try to crush us.
And some of my family members are ripped
apart and recycled.
We start as a human’s delight, and end here
at the resting place of all the trash.
Ela
Room 124 (8th Grade)
Some of them are brand new.
Some are broken, wasted away to dust, gone.
There are new friends every day. I barely recognize any of them.
Every few minutes a new hand picks me up.
The foolish people drop me. I break in two.
They pick me up, put half of me back in the tray, bring me up to the black wasteland
and my body is rubbed away.
I leave a mark. Is that not what everyone
wishes to do, to leave a mark on the world?
My mark is erased.
scream, as if happily.
Within a few minutes the world is empty
all except for one person.
Another fifteen minutes pass, and the last
person leaves. The room is dark.
I begin to collect dust once again.
Mirza
Room 124 (8th Grade)
all the creatures swim beneath me
boats swim on my head and the planes
shake me as they pass by.
Creatures with arms and legs come
with equipment to swim in my body.
Predators chase their prey while the
rest hide.
whales to octopus and shrimps to seaweed
is what makes it beautiful.
No one really comes all the way down.
My feet hurt and all the things of the world
on top of me are dumped right into me—
their waste falls and breaks the home of the citizens.
Nothing is explored beneath me
no one comes because of fears.
I want everything explored
and then I’ll be happy and have even more power.
Bibiana
Room 124 (8th Grade)
Different reactions
for every person.
Taking tears and rage
and happiness
with the story I show.
A person feeling
what I feel
they turn my pages
and tears fall
I feel the cold
dripping of emotions.
I am old and battered.
Not many come by, but
the people I see are young and bright
looking to see
the story of life. But people
think differently of me now.
I am what I am—
the book of life.
Numan
Room 124 (8th Grade)
My laces knotted
My soles all worn out
I sit there eating up space
I cry my laces out
Waiting for a foot in me
The stench of old socks
Attached to me.
I wait for a foot to fill me up.
A giant approaching
I lay my air holes out
And my thin cushions.
I lay my laces out on
The sight of those smelly socks
It is another day my body
Inhabited by a foot.
The big and tall basketball shoes
Were thrown in the backpack.
I dreamt I was him; he was
Only worn once a day
While I sit attached to a foot
All day rotting my soles away.
I await the time I come back
Home to my family of sneakers.
The day will come when my soles will die
And I will never be tied again.
Angela
Room 124 (8th Grade)
When I will end no man can tell.
I pass slow for some.
I pass fast for others.
But in truth, who can accurately say that I pass an even length?
So many ways men measure me to their fitting.
Why, I am always there with you, always going without favor.
How flexible I am is up to man to find out.
I will pass & move without favor or hate.
One of my many forms common worldwide—a clock.
In so many ways man depends upon my hands.
I shout & I whisper;
I tick & I tock.
How many hands I have
How many sounds I make
How many of my numerals can be shown.
Accuracy is what man see for, but
Who can actually read me
Measure me
Count me
Correctly?
