original perspective
— A teacher introduces experimental poetry written by multilingual students in Shanghai, created through unconventional writing prompts designed to spark wild imagination.
— A young writer describes preparing for the journey into imagination like bundling up for winter, knowing she might not find her way back.
— A dreamlike poem where nothing and noone inhabit a valley of inverted colors and upside-down trees, until someone and everyone arrive to paint the sky with love.
— A child's meditation on the moon's solitude and steadfast companionship with Earth, emphasizing its loneliness through repetition.
— A boy's stream of anxious questions about loneliness, belonging, and fear spirals into a plea for connection and normalcy.
— A young poet captures New York City at night through vivid sensory images—scraggly trees, moonlight on curtains, flickering streetlamps—ending with the city caught in 'the tangled thicket of past importance.'
— A mirror poem captures the dual nature of listening to music—the same notes can bring magnificence or screeching, beauty or pain, depending on perspective.
— A matsutake mushroom narrates its journey from a Tibetan forest where it's harvested by a girl named Tashi, to a New York market, and finally to a new forest home...
— A girl dreams of descending through ocean layers to encounter a mysterious jellyfish, then wakes to ordinary life while harboring her grandfather's secret journal of undiscovered sea creatures.
— A basketball player reflects on how the game remains constant from third grade through high school, despite physical changes and growing skill.