Curriculum

“There Goes the Sun” is a short story by Phoebe Donovan, age 11. It is written in close third person, in past tense. The protagonist is a boy named Robin. In the opening scene, Robin is on the subway on his way to his trumpet lesson. He is thinking about his father, a Beatles fan who loved the song “Yellow Submarine.” We find out later that his dad is deployed in the army. All of a sudden, Robin has a vision—he feels transported to a strange yet familiar place, all while staying exactly where he is. He goes to his trumpet lesson but feels very shaky. His teacher, Mrs. Merry, notices he is behaving oddly and asks him about it, but he evades her question.  When Robin gets home, there is a man taking a shower in his house and singing “Yellow Submarine.” Robin asks if he is his dad, but the man says no. After a few more Beatles songs, the man gets dressed and emerges from the bathroom. He explains that he is General X, leader of the Infinity Army. They need Robin to join them—he is special. They go get ice cream, something Robin likes to do with his dad, and they explain that they are at war with the Purple Witherers, purple baby dragons who, once killed, spawn new dragons from their withering skin. If they lose, Queen Elementa, the leader of the Purple Witherers, will lock all the citizens of the Infinity Realm in a dungeon forever.  Mrs. Merry continues to worry about Robin, and eventually calls his mother on the phone. Robin’s mother says that Robin is fine, and then they go to the pool. On the subway on his way to his next trumpet lesson, the car Robin is in is overrun with Purple Witherers, who kill most of the people in the car. Robin manages to get away and runs to Mrs. Merry’s house. During his lesson, General X tells Robin telepathically that they lost. Then, Queen Elementa attacks Robin. When he wakes up, Queen Elementa—who is possibly Mrs. Merry?—is standing over him. His mother nods to her and then takes him to the children’s hospital.  What makes this world believable?  This is an action-packed story that takes place in a very detailed, precise world. Part of what makes the world so effective is that there are several locations that we return to again and again throughout the story. First, there’s the subway as described in the opening scene: Robin stared at the orange plaid subway seat across from him, thinking about his father. . . . The subway seats went fuzzy as visions and voices swam into focus. It was as if he’d been transported somewhere else entirely without moving an inch, somewhere strange and unpleasant, yet oddly familiar. And as quickly as it came, it left, and he found himself staring at the empty seat cushion, where he saw only fabric and thread and heard only the grinding of the subway wheels. Orange plaid is such a unique pattern for a subway seat—it’s a memorable opening image. The writer uses this precision to jar us, right away, out of the world that she has so carefully created. It’s a comfort to return to the familiarity of the subway’s fabric seats, its lurching movement. Throughout the story, the writer continues to build the scenes that establish Robin’s world. Robin takes the subway to his trumpet lesson each week: Robin climbed Ms. Merry’s marble steps and passed the colorful flowers lining them. Birds chittered in the trees. He felt more at home here than anywhere else. The front door was never locked, so Robin stepped into the foyer and listened as the boy before him finished his lesson in the study. He smirked; it was nice to hear someone who was worse at trumpet, even though that wasn’t the nicest thing to think. Ms. Merry welcomed him into the study. Her kind eyes smiled warmly as she offered him a plate of freshly baked cookies. All of this description helps make Mrs. Merry’s house just as important of a space to the story as the subway. These two spaces become anchoring points that help us watch how Robin changes throughout the story. By returning to the same, constant spaces, we are able to witness the people in those spaces change. When he awakened, his mum was standing over him. “Watch out for Queen Elementa!” he warned her, “She’s dangerous! She put General X in an Infinity Dungeon!” His mum nodded at Queen Elementa. Robin’s mum steered him out to her car. She placed him in the backseat. The sun shone through the front windscreen, making it hard to see. It felt as though this were his own prison, hot and sticky. As though he was sharing the same fate as his beloved friend. Robin’s mother typed “Bluebird Children’s Hospital” into the GPS system. Then she drove off. This all happens at Robin’s trumpet lesson. It’s striking that by the end of the story, Mrs. Merry’s house is no longer a place of peace and home, but rather one of turmoil and loss.  Discussion questions:  What are some “anchoring details” that you can trace consistently throughout the story? Do you think Mrs. Merry was Queen Elementa?  The world of this story might be believable—but is its protagonist believable? Do you trust Robin’s perspective to be accurate in this story? Why or why not? There Goes the Sun Robin stared at the orange plaid subway seat across from him, thinking about his father. How he always liked listening to “Yellow Submarine.” How after all that Robin had been through, his dad’s favorite song was still played all across the world. The subway seats went fuzzy as visions and voices swam into focus. It was as if he’d been transported somewhere else entirely without moving an inch, somewhere strange and unpleasant, yet oddly familiar. And as quickly as it came, it left, and he

The trouble begins when the sewer people decide to form a government

“The Lonely Radio,” by Avital Sagan, age 12, is a short story told from the first-person present perspective of a radio. The radio lives in a city called Floracion at the top of a skyscraper. Floracion is unique because of the giant moonflowers called “gigantics” that only bloom at night and grow to over twelve feet wide all over the city. Most people are awake at night so they can go and see the flowers, and the radio loves them too. The radio’s main human contact is a man called the Communicator who uses the radio to talk to people in cities far away. But one day, the Communicator does not come to see the radio. That night, no one comes outside—no cars drive on the streets, the lights are out. The radio checks the other stations but only hears static. Looking out the window, the radio sees with horror that the gigantics have come alive and are hunting. After a while, a young boy named Daniel staggers in and begs the radio to work, to not let him die there. The radio, thinking it can help, tries to connect Daniel to a person in a distant city who he thinks could help. But the woman on the other end thinks it’s a prank. Then Daniel’s mother comes, holding a moonflower, and forces him to smell it. Daniel collapses and the two of them leave. The lonely radio at the top of the skyscraper resigns itself to its fate: it will be in this forgotten city until the city burns or is covered up by the ocean. What makes this world believable?  This story is written in the style of magical realism. Most of the details of the story feel a bit like realistic fiction—this is a world that resembles the world here on Earth. There are radios, skyscrapers, cities, and businesspeople. There are parents and children, music, and even photos of dogs. The only two magical elements in the story are the talking radio and the giant living flowers.  When writing about a world where there is magic, or where things don’t work like they do here on Earth, one way to make it believable is to limit the number of unique details. By making the world mostly resemble our own and then incorporating those few, odd magical details, the writer directs the reader’s attention to the most important elements of the world.  The radio says: My room is near the top of a skyscraper that towers over the rest of the city. There are impressively tall buildings and people constantly going about their business, but that’s not the best part. The best part is the flowers. This description’s power starts with the surprising nature of the revelation. When the writer tells us that the skyscrapers aren’t even the best part, as readers we expect the best part to be something else you’d find in a city—the best part is the zoo, or the best part is the beautiful park. When the writer says “flowers,” once again, as readers, we expect something different than what we get. I imagine flowers in cute window boxes, or in garden plots, or lining the streets. What I don’t imagine is this:  Floracion is overrun with moonflowers, aptly called “gigantics,” white flowers that only bloom at night and sometimes grow over a dozen feet wide. People make room for them everywhere. On the sides of buildings, in storefronts, on roofs. Beyond the surprise of the flowers themselves, another thing that makes this description powerful is where the gigantics appear. As a reader, I can really see them—opening in front of the local coffee shop, or on the side of the bookstore. It’s such an odd, precise image, and its precision is helped along by the fact that we know what buildings, storefronts, and flowers are. None of these elements on their own are unexpected.  Similarly, the very fact of our protagonist is an interesting exercise in both a realistic and unrealistic approach. Radios are very ordinary—but sentient radios aren’t (at least, not that we know of). Even in this magical world, the writer is careful not to allow the radio to break the rules of its physical form. When Daniel, a young boy, comes to ask for help, the radio can change the stations. But it can’t help in other ways, even when it perceives danger:  Hide, I try to yell, but my speakers can only release static. You’re not safe here.  Even though it is sentient, the radio is still bound by the rules that constrain it on Earth—it can speak in static or in radio stations. It can transmit other people’s broadcasts, but it cannot speak for itself. In a strange, extraordinary world, this radio’s ordinary function helps us, as readers, orient to the new reality.  Discussion questions: What are other moments in the story where the ordinary rules of reality on Earth are blended with the extraordinary realities of life in Floracion?  The writer builds a believable world through a radio—a strange choice of protagonist. Why do you think the writer chose a radio to be the protagonist? How would the story have felt different if the main character had been Daniel, the human child who tries to escape the moonflowers, or the Communicator? The Lonely Radio Radios have become old-fashioned. I know that through the snippets of conversation I hear as I sit on my table. Despite that, they’ve never done more than talk about replacing me. There’s a man who uses me the most often. He has an impressive mustache and is often referred to as “the Communicator” by the people who talk through me. I connect people who are far away. It may not be the most exciting job—I care very little about human politics—but it’s fulfilling to know what I’m doing is helping people. And when people aren’t using me, I can look out at the island of Floracion. My room is near the top

This is a short story told in the close third-person point of view. It follows Violet, a thirteen-year-old girl who lives in the Divided States of America, a country split between the Purple People in the West and the Green People in the East. In the middle, dividing the two sides, is the Forbidden Strip—where people from the East and West have chosen to live together. The Forbidden Strip is considered a very dangerous place, but Violet, a business courier, must travel there to deliver documents.  On this particular trip, a mudslide halts train service, trapping Violet overnight in the Forbidden Strip. Desperate for a safe place to spend the night, she sneaks into an attic. In the morning, she is discovered by Unum, the girl who lives there with her family—a blended family, with Green and Purple parents. As they discuss their country, Violet’s perspective on the Green People changes, and she resolves to work to unite the two lands.  What makes this world believable?  Harper Fortgang, 13, uses a mix of specific details, memories, and context to build her believable world—not just the larger universe, with its Divided States, but also Unum’s home and Violet’s home.  I awake to the sounds of feet thumping below me and little voices begging for a pancake breakfast. For a blissful moment, I am convinced that I am lying in my own comfortable bed back in the West and these are my two younger siblings, Iris and Mauve. I am the last one up, probably exhausted from my adventure in the Forbidden Strip. I roll onto my side and open my eyes. Instead of finding my purple wall, I see a cobweb-filled ceiling, a dusty mattress, and an attic stuffed with old bicycles, worn chairs, and dusty paintings. The moment of bliss slips away as I remember my current situation. From the sounds of Unum’s family enjoying breakfast downstairs to Violet’s memories of her own home and the detailed description of the attic and its contents, the world Fortgang describes is brought to life. Fortgang adds depth to the world by delving into Violet’s memories, showing us that this fictional world has a history and a background—which makes it feel more real, more like our world: I think back to when I was younger and first learned that Green People lived in the Divided States of America when a neighbor reported a Green person sneaking around our street. I remember my fear as my mother told me to hide under my bed. Were the Green People trying to break in and harm us? Was this the first step toward another war? I learned to be afraid of the Green People and look down on those who lived in the Forbidden Strip. For thirteen years, I believed this was the truth and never questioned these assumptions.  Fortgang does an excellent job of subtly weaving in contextual details that give us the information we need to understand Violet’s world and situation. We can appreciate how Fortgang gives us just the information we need to understand the world—not overloading us with unnecessary information or details.  Delivering business documents in the Forbidden Strip is dangerous, especially for a thirteen-year-old Purple girl like me. My parents would have never let me come here, but we are struggling for money, so I became a business courier. The Forbidden Strip is part of the Divided States of America, which consists of three separate lands. I hail from the West, a land solely for the Purple People, and the Green People occupy the East. My parents tell me the West is far superior and our brilliant shade of lavender should remain separate from the East’s pale-green skin. Discussion questions:  One way the writer builds a believable world is through using specific details that remind us of our own. By placing these details alongside those that are unique to the world of the story, the reader is able to feel more grounded in the narrative. What are some moments where the author uses familiar details to introduce unfamiliar ones?  In the story, the author uses the roof both as a setting and as an extended metaphor. What, if anything, do you think the roof represents in the story?  Does the conflict that this story describes remind you of any conflicts in our world today? Up on the Roof “Who’s there?” I call into the empty blackness, a chill running down my spine. I watch as a black cat leaps past me and around a corner, disappearing into the darkness. I exhale a sigh of relief and try to convince myself, yet again, there is nothing to fear. I begin walking, squeezing the strap of my satchel filled with documents like a four-year-old clinging to her mother’s hand. I dart across the street, heading toward a haunted-looking building with decaying red trim. Delivering business documents in the Forbidden Strip is dangerous, especially for a thirteen-year-old Purple girl like me. My parents would have never let me come here, but we are struggling for money, so I became a business courier. The Forbidden Strip is part of the Divided States of America, which consists of three separate lands. I hail from the West, a land solely for the Purple People, and the Green People occupy the East. My parents tell me the West is far superior and our brilliant shade of lavender should remain separate from the East’s pale-green skin. We believe in individual achievement and preserving traditions while the East advocates a new direction, putting the government’s interests ahead of citizens’ needs. I am told that the people from the East look down on us and we have a long history of conflict, causing mistrust and fear. Between both lands lies the Forbidden Strip, where people from the West and East choose to live together. I have heard terrible rumors about the people who live here. However, important documents still need to be transferred from the West, even if we are

“Where I’m From” is a prose poem by Talia Moro, age 10. The poem is written in the first-person perspective. The speaker talks about all of the different places they are from: the hot deserts of Africa, Europe, New Jersey, Zimbabwe, the piano, a village in France, New Orleans, summer night barbecues, and giving Lotta (the dog) a bath. For each place the speaker is from, they spend the paragraph describing the scene and incorporating a wide array of sensory details.  How does this poet play with poetic form? “Where I’m From” is a prose poem. If you were to glance at it without reading any of the words, you might think it was a short story or a memoir or an essay or an article because it is written in paragraphs with traditionally capitalized sentences. But on a language level, this is very much a poem: it uses wordplay, strong images, and repetition, and there’s a real musicality to the language. Prose poems don’t use line breaks or enjambment, which poets often use as rhythmic structures. In “Where I’m From,” Talia E. Moyo creates rhythm within the poem in other ways. She uses anaphora to great effect:  I’m from Louisiana, New Orleans, with Louis Amstrong on every street and Mardi Gras beads hanging on electricity poles. And homemade spicy crab mix, my favorite of all time. I’m from summer night barbecues and side dishes of haricots (rice and beans), and running my home-made “ninja course.” With Lotta biting at my clippety-cloppety, sparkling, muddy boots. The repeated phrase helps make the poem feel more musical. Repeating “I’m from” also allows the poet to move through space and time very quickly. We move from New Orleans to New Jersey swiftly. No matter where the speaker is, they are from all of these places—and they help bring us there too.  I’m from staring on a starry night into the clear nighttime sky way past midnight. But on the rainy days, you’ll find me in a light raincoat and without an umbrella running around my yard with a little puppy running and slipping at my heels. At times, the repetition feels more like a musical element than like something the poet needs to say in order to make sense to the reader. A good example is above, with the line that starts “I’m from staring on a starry night . . .” In these cases, the repeated “I’m from” feels less like they are telling us where the speaker is from and more like a way to create a unit of pause in the poem without line breaks.  Whenever you find a pattern in a poem, you should always look for where the poet breaks it—often, these can be some of the most important moments in the poem. Toward the end of the poem, the “I’m from” switches to “I’ll always be from” in two instances. Here’s the first: I’ll always be from giving Lotta a bath and seeing her look almost as skinny as a single sheet of paper.  What an image! As skinny as a single sheet of paper—the poet also makes excellent use of alliteration. Anyway, here’s the second “I’ll always be from”: And I’ll always be from the really special place—my home. By changing the repeated phrase subtly, the writer creates more variation in the poem and shows us two of the most important things to them: Lotta the dog, and home.  Discussion questions:  Sometimes, the “I am from”s in the poem switch between physical places and things like music. What do you think the speaker of the poem means when they say, “I am from”? What does “from” really mean in this poem? Can you identify other places where the poet breaks a pattern they have created within the poem? How do you think this poem would have felt if it had line breaks instead of being a prose poem? Where I’m From I’m from the hot deserts of Africa, with Sekuru’s delectable, rich mushroom stew, and Mama’s avocado pudding, and the African adventures with waterfalls and dancing in the night with fireflies as night lights. And the red dusty villages of Cameroon, with rains that come almost once every month. And Sekuru’s little straw hut-like chapel, where stories and the Bible are read. The big continent of Europe is where I’m from, with silly, little, annoying, cute, frustrating cousins who follow me everywhere I go. And aunties, who make delicious cake pops and table grill and German sausages and treats and grow mouth-watering fruits that drip down my shirt, and cook everything possible everywhere they go. I’m from Hopewell, New Jersey, with its green luscious forests, and with Lotta, our dog, following my every single step. And seeing her perform a routine of sit, lie down, paw and guess which hand your treat is under. And the soft sandy beaches of the New Jersey shore and their warm grains of sand cushioning my feet under cool water with shells of all shapes, sizes and colors. I’m from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, with drops of water splashing my face like rain. I’m from hiking up mountains to reach for the heavens above us. With my Sekuru who tells me stories of his trips from Australia to Los Angeles and all around the world. And I’m from the frightening animals, like charging elephants and yawning hippos with enormous teeth and lions crossing roads. The piano is where I’m from, with notes from lowest A to highest C, and violins and cellos that follow me. They sing the songs of Mr. Louis with a past as old as dirt itself. And when strummed, fill the air with dust and history of an old jazz band rocking out on the streets all night. I’m from a village in France, with water crystal blue and caves with plenty of history to go around. And little French schools with children running around and screaming with joy. I’m from lollipops the size of my head.

“Antarctic” is a poem by Amber Zhao, age 10. The poem begins with a letter, written to the speaker from an unnamed “you”—this you is the addressee of the entire poem. The “you” is in Antarctica, and they report that they have not seen penguins yet. The speaker imagines the letter writer there, and talks about their own memories of visiting Antarctica. The poem is highly lyrical. How does this poet play with poetic forms? “Antarctica” is a great example of a powerful use of long lines. In a poem, line length can tell us a lot about the overall tone. In a poem with shorter lines, the language feels choppier but also moves more quickly. A poem with longer lines can sometimes feel more narrative. We often read a long-lined poem much more slowly because there is less interruption through enjambment. Here, the lines are quite long. The result is a poem that feels as vast as the antarctic landscape it describes.  that icy wilderness, with its harsh arc of grandiose majesty, luminous glaciers otherworldly in the setting sun? The Earth’s veins will be hidden deep beneath the icicle-crusted ground The words stretch out, reminding us a bit of the frozen wilderness that they describe. The poem is full of outstanding images and sounds that collide to form rich, vivid descriptions.  those waterfalls of ice, pluming into the distant rays of an underwater moon. Stinging chandeliers, jellyfish, pulsed deadly, deadly under a human touch, yet beguiling, a universal gravity drawing the fingers to the stingers. Translucent lives floated and flowered in a primal ripple-ring of wild nerves The comparison of jellyfish to “stinging chandeliers” may change the way I see jellyfish and chandeliers forever! It’s such an apt comparison, but also such an unusual one—it is a very memorable image. There are many lovely “u” sounds throughout these five lines: “pluming,” “underwater,” “pulsed,” “under,” “touch,” “beguiling,” “universal,” “translucent.” In poetry, repeating a vowel sound close to another vowel sound is called “assonance.” The poet uses assonance to great effect throughout the poem. There’s a similar term for repeating consonants, by the way: “consonance.” Alliteration, where two words start with the same consonant sound—like “ripple-ring”—is a form of consonance. Matching up sounds is pleasing to the ear and helps a poem that is already full of imaginative images also be filled with music. Discussion questions: Do you notice other examples of assonance or consonance in the poem?  In the poem, the speaker writes, “Now you are on another expedition, and we move / on different axes.” How does the speaker contrast images of Antarctica to their own surroundings? What do we learn about the speaker through these descriptions?   Antarctic “The sea’s cold,” is all you write from Antarctica, “and we haven’t seen any penguins yet. Hope we do.” How to analyze that icy wilderness, with its harsh arc of grandiose majesty, luminous glaciers otherworldly in the setting sun? The Earth’s veins will be hidden deep beneath the icicle-crusted ground, my friend, and the surreal wonders of stepping onto land after many days at sea, a sensation to conquer. I remember those waterfalls of ice, pluming into the distant rays of an underwater moon. Stinging chandeliers, jellyfish, pulsed deadly, deadly under a human touch, yet beguiling, a universal gravity drawing the fingers to the stingers. Translucent lives floated and flowered in a primal ripple-ring of wild nerves, and plastic floating billowed out like hollow silk. The drift of marine snow impacts our small universe of steel pens, the kettle’s familiar whistle and scissors left unpacked from their case. We journeyed down the wild underwater cavern, that labyrinth of darkness, a metallic lake, the Southern Ocean, reflecting and dissolving ourselves as we really were. As if the pulsing of the boat was gone, and we were no longer tethered to that rope on which hung life . . . and death. It’s been a thousand years, feels like it, since I descended the staircase of ice and snow for the first time. How, then, back from our trip, has life shrunk to this bare minimum? I gnaw on my pencils; suddenly the tree in someone else’s garden flushes red, blood on branches acidly looking up to the sky, and shifting forms in textures evolve. We walked together in Antarctica, strolling from the point where universe meets universe and back, breezes whipping endlessly, our twin fingerprints glowing transparently on Antarctic, sacred land. Now you are on another expedition, and we move on different axes; you acknowledge the penguins but do not study their very form, shape, soul, like me, tiny wriggling bulbs of black and white, alighting into the ocean. At night the color palettes would spring and turn above. Your final visitation was a quick one, that ghostly gaze of departure to Antarctica already spreading its languorous translation all over your pale silken face—imagining zodiacs, moving images in a world magnified by its sheer, brutal barrenness, and an escape to endless stars wheeling, even blizzards pouring down from the polar axis’s hemisphere. Amber Zhao, 10 Brisbane, Australia

“A Beautiful Day in August” is a poem by William Chiu, age 13. The poem describes, in first-person present tense, an August day. The speaker starts out wondering what happens now—school is out, their friends are gone. They describe their new routine: they wake up, have breakfast, practice violin, walk the dog, eat lunch, practice piano, and learn Spanish.  After describing the typical routine more broadly, the speaker then zooms in on the details of a single day. They are startled by the flickering bedroom ceiling light. They describe their dog’s soft white belly. The piano is out of tune, and the violin is scratched, and they learn a new word in Spanish. They end by concluding that the day is anything but routine. How does this poet play with poetic forms? This is a long poem—ninety-nine lines, to my count. It’s a poem that is not written in any traditional form, but even so, the piece has many formal constraints that the poet follows closely. The lines are very short, between one and three words. Even more unique is the way the writer uses punctuation. There is a punctuation mark after every single word, typically periods. Often, the form of a poem—that is, its physical shape—responds to its content. In a poem where the writer is making such striking and unique formal choices, we can look to the text to help give us a sense as to why. The poem opens: Friends. Gone. _______Blank. Pixels. Without. Presence. The word “pixels” might refer to the computer screen—perhaps the speaker’s friends are logged off. But “pixels” also informs how the poem itself appears to us. Just like pixels, the words are separate units that feel that they are blinking on and off, a few per line. Further, this idea of friends being gone points to a loss of communication. Just as the periods interrupt the flow of the lines, the summer has interrupted our speaker’s usual dialogues with their friends. And the speaker’s loss of their usual routine isn’t the only interruption—later on, we see that the lights are interrupted too: Bedroom. Ceiling. _______Light. Flickering. Another technique the poet uses is something called “caesura.” Caesura refers to white space in a poem within a line—indentations, larger-than-average spaces between words or sentences. We see an example of this above—“light” is indented. The zig-zag formed by the text feels a lot like a flickering light—a quick, choppy movement.  When a poet writes a poem with a unique form, it’s sometimes pretty startling at first! We can tell that a unique form is successful if the poem teaches the reader to get used to the form. This definitely happens here—by the end of the poem, the narrative takes on a kind of flow that we can easily read, even amid the choppiness: Wow. _______“Izquierda.” Is. Left. First. Time. _______I. Learned. That. Piano. The. “E.” _______Is. Out. Of. Tune. Just as the speaker of the poem is learning to speak Spanish, as readers we are learning to speak the language of the poem. The extra periods become more of a texture and less of a surprise.  Discussion questions:  What are some moments where the poet breaks the “rules” they have established for the poem? Does the poem’s style or use of language change throughout it in any way? If so, how? Later on in the poem, the poet makes frequent use of caesura. Why do you think the poet chooses not to use as much caesura as later on in the sequence beginning with “Routine. / Wake. Up.”? A Beautiful Day in August Friends. Gone. _______Blank. Pixels. Without. Presence. School. Out. What. Now? Days. Filled. _______Summer. Routine. Wake. Up. Eat. Breakfast. Violin. Walk. Dog. Lunch. Piano. Spanish. Shower. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. False. So. Many. _______Things. To. Do. Bedroom. Ceiling. _______Light. Flickering. Huh. Weird. Never. _______Noticed. That. Before. Steps. Face. Peering. _______Down. Bright. Bark. _______Of. Recognition. White. Belly. Warm. Soft. _______Fog, Sweeping. The. Mountain. Blue. Sky. Outside. _______What. A. Pretty. Picture. Violin. New. _______Scratches. Still. Plays. _______Pretty. Well. Be. More. _______Careful. Next. Time. Wow. _______“Izquierda.” Is. Left. First. Time. _______I. Learned. That. Piano. The. “E.” _______Is. Out. Of. Tune. Fuzz. It’s. Fine. Food. Is. _______Good. Even. Better. With. Magazine. Walking. _______The. Backyard. _______Revealing. New. Plants. Watering. _______Them. Is. Always. A. Joy. August. _______A. Month. That. Matters. Summer. Break. _______Yay! Birthdays. _______Me. Mom. Bear. It’s. _______Anything. But. Routine. It. _______Truly. Is. A. Beautiful. Day. In. August. William Chui, 13 Mill Valley, CA Zoe Campbell, 11 San Francisco, CA

“Midnight” is a poem by Julia Marcus, age 13. The poem describes how lonely it must be to be a clock hanging on the wall in the middle of the night. In particular the poem laments the fact that there is no one to ask the clock what time it is, even if the clock knows the time. How does this poet play with poetic forms? The poem is written in sixteen very short lines. Each line is between one and four words long. It is written in a single stanza. There is mostly no punctuation, except on three lines, because the poem is composed of a single sentence.  Even though the lines are short, there isn’t a precise rule to how short each line will be. It varies line to line. There’s something extremely compelling about this variation in a poem about a clock. A clock is very regimented—each second is a set length, each minute is a set length, and each hour is a set length. But this poem has a looser rhythm: It must be so lonely to be a clock in the middle There’s so much going on in these four lines! First, they are really interesting on a sound level. We open on a rhyme between “be” and “lonely.” It’s a rhyme that we can’t see, because it exists between the “e” and the “y”. Then, we get lots of “o” sounds: “so lonely to be a clock.” The assonance is really satisfying, especially when we depart from the pattern of o’s in “be a” and then return to the in “clock.”  The sounds also help set a scene. There’s a relative stillness to “so lonely” that is disrupted by the hastiness of the line that comes after it: “to be a clock.” “In the middle” slows down once again, and by the time we get to “hanging” I can feel the pendulum of the poem swinging slower and slower. Though the poem reminds us that the clock is “steadily ticking,” the ticking of the poem is more of an ebb and flow.  This poem creates an almost breath-like feeling in the way it thinks about time. There’s something really human about the poem’s movements, and decidedly un-clocklike. This is interesting when we think about the poem’s content. The poem seems to ask whether a clock’s time really exists or matters if there is no one there to see it. The poem answers affirmatively yes—clocks themselves experience time, even when we humans aren’t around.  Discussion questions: Do you think this poem would have felt different to read if its lines had been longer? Why or why not? Why do you think the writer chose to put the word “hanging” on its own line?   Midnight It must be so lonely to be a clock in the middle of the night hanging on the wall steadily ticking through the darkness with no one awake to ask: What time is it? even though you will be able to say just the same. Julia Marcus, 13 Culver City, CA

“Waterfall” by Jillian Carmel, age 9, is a haiku. The title names what the poem describes: this is about a waterfall. But the word “waterfall” never appears in the poem itself. Instead, we see the effects of the waterfall on the world around it and on the speaker of the poem.  How does this poet play with poetic forms? The haiku is a traditional Japanese poetic form. The first line of a haiku is typically five syllables, the second is seven, and the third is, once again, five. This 5/7/5 structure is reflected in “Waterfall” as well. Historically, haiku started out as openings to longer Japanese poems called renga. But over the years, poets have begun to use haiku on their own. “Waterfall” opens on a loud, boisterous image: Crashing to the ground Often, nature is described in soft, polite words. Crashing is a striking departure from that tradition. This waterfall isn’t soft or delicate or gentle—it crashes. It charges. It knocks things over. It moves quickly.  The second line introduces an internal contradiction: So silent but very loud This conflict between loudness and silence makes us start to wonder how we define these words. Perhaps silence and loudness aren’t just ways of describing noise. Maybe these words also describe how we feel when we look at something as simultaneously enormous, powerful, and serene as a waterfall.  Another interesting part of the second line of the haiku is that “ground” and “loud” form a slant rhyme. The slant rhyme mirrors the dissolution of the second line—things don’t quite line up or make sense with this waterfall. But even in its complicated messiness, there’s still music to it, just as there is music to the waterfall in all its loud silence. Discussion questions: What do you make of the third line? Why do you think the writer steps out of direct description and into a more abstract space? What are other natural phenomena that, like waterfalls, feel both silent and loud?   Waterfall Crashing to the ground So silent but very loud It’s nature’s magic Jillian Carmel, 9 Denver, CO