A poetry anthology made by me for my english 2 class. This homework was worth 100 points.

1. Verlonna TenBrink 2nd hour October 2, 2015
PERSONAL
POETRY
by Verlonna TenBrink
1

2. Introduction
“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.”
― Gustave Flaubert
It is often said that poetry is the best form of writing, or that it’s the most
emotional type, or that it can be intense and complex and strange and
beautiful. All of these are true, but not everyone feels such thoughts.
Certain poem techniques pique some interests, other poem techniques
pique other interests. I like many types of poetry, but short, rhyming,
meaningful poems always get my attention. Simple, powerful poems
interest me also because I can relate to them, I can understand what the
poet means immediately because I’ve often had the same thoughts as
they have. The reason poetry is so popular, meaningful, beautiful,
refreshing, relatable and fun to write is because there is poetry in
everything. You can find poetry in death, poetry in life. Poetry in
inanimate objects, poetry in living people. Poetry in dreams, poetry in
nightmares. I’ve never had a chance to tap into these topics of poetry
because I wasn’t trained, I didn’t know what I was doing. Now, I see why
so many enjoy stanza after stanza of Emily Dickinson, Henry W.
Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, and many other famous authors. My list is
not the greatest poems written in history, but rather my personal poetry
gathered into a small list of poems by me, famous authors, and people I
know. (237)
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3. Table of Contents
Poem Page
Introduction
The arrow and the song
Bury me in a free land
First Fig
I Killed a Spider With my Shoe
What time is it?
Remembering my dreams
Into the Ocean
Can You Sing a Song?
Dreams
’Hope is the thing with feathers’
Poetry sources
Photo Credits
3
2
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
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4. The Arrow and the Song
William W. Longfellow
When I read this poem, I fell in love. I didn’t hesitate to
memorize it because there was just something about it
that made it so interesting. There is a perfect amount of
lines in each of the three stanzas, the words fall off your
tongue in a bouncy, fluent way and the rhymes at the end
of each line really tie it together. It’s interesting to compare
the flight of the arrow to the flight of the song because -as
we know-, an arrow is physical and therefore visible but a
song is invisible, only proving its existence by that of
sound waves. Both fly, but in such different ways. (111)
4
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
Poem 1

5. Bury me in a Free Land
by Frances E. W. Harper
I liked how Harper didn’t refrain from detailing
some of the brutal treatment of slaves. Slavery is
not something to be taken lightly or to laugh
about and she really emphasized that. I always
have a soft spot for people who have been
mistreated and this poem really hit my core. If I
had been a slave I would wish for the very same
thing. It was not a made-up story that young girls
really were sold for their youthful charms, and it
makes a deep sadness grow inside me. Such a
meaningful poem and it’s soaked in reality and
truths. (101)
5
…
I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.
…
…
I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay
Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
And I heard the captive plead in vain
As they bound afresh his galling chain.
If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms
Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.
…
I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
Poem 2

6. First fig
by Edna ST. Vincent Millay
When I read this poem, the first thing I thought about
was life and death. The flame of a candle always
burns bright as long as it has a wick to follow and wax
to burn, much like our lives. There is a point in time
where we just cannot go any further, and our flame
runs out. Sometimes it’s because the wax has been
spent or the wick is too short, but sometimes
accidents happen, and the light is blown out, leaving
a trail of smoke to impact history. I think that the
speaker in this poem knows her time is at an end, and
she is not afraid or angry or resentful; she is happy
that her light has shone bright for friends and family
to see until the night comes and the flame is spent.
(138)
6
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!
Poem 3

7. I Killed a Spider With my Shoe
by Verlonna TenBrink
Most everyone in their lives have killed a spider before.
They’re creepy, unwanted, and gross at times, it’s a no
wonder nobody cares for the small arachnids on the wall. I
sympathize with this by really explaining the details of the
spider itself. I kept to four lines per stanza with a good
visual representation for the reader, and the first two lines
explain its position in my house. Even though killing a
spider is not usually thought of as a crime, I made sure to
keep the viewpoint neutral. The creepy-crawler did
nothing wrong and was therefore innocent, but at the
same time it looked so menacing and dangerous that it
was just all too necessary to kill. (119)
7
There it is
on the wall
It’s legs long,
It’s rump plump
Staying there
on the wall
Eyes so beady
Silk like glue
It’s now moving
On the wall
Gotta kill it
With my shoe
Poem 4

8. What time is it?
by Verlonna TenBrink
Ideas for poems always seem to come out of nowhere. I
wrote this poem because I longed for recognition for my
robotics team, but at the same time I wanted to test the
clarity and meaning of my work. Whenever the clock
strikes 1:07, our team (team R.O.B.O.T.I.C.S. Reaching Out
and Building Others Together In Christ’s Service) yells the
question: what time is it? And replies to ourselves that it’s
107, the number we are. Every stanza starts off with a
question to keep the thoughts of the reader guessing the
answer until it is revealed. However, it wasn’t always that
way and I put it through eight draftings until I finally got
the result I wanted and needed. (127)
8
What time is it?
Shout it out loud.
Don’t move your mouth
with no sound coming out.
What time is it?
Most clocks are different,
but surely you can see.
AM, PM, it doesn’t matter to me
What time is it?
Don’t stray or it’ll be too late
Sit up straight, say it clear
It’s 1:07 over here
But why does it matter,
how does it matter?
If you were apart of the robotics team,
You would see what 107 means.
Poem 5

9. Remembering my Dreams
by Verlonna TenBrink
The very first thing that caught my eye in a poem was the
rhyme and repetition. When I had no idea what poetry was
about, rhyming was what I thought to be the only aspect of
a poem. In the piece that I wrote, I went back to those
times of alliteration and focused on making every line flow
with syllables and speed. Remembering the dreams I have
every night is truly difficult to me, and I wanted to capture
that struggle in a poem. I wanted the reader to understand
and remember the feeling of forgetting a cool or wacky
dream because we’ve all had that disappointing moment
when we wish to recall an adventure had and not
remember a single thing about it. (125)
9
Remembering my dreams
is not as easy as it seems
Every single time I sleep
I keep on counting many sheep
Also no dream comes to me
That will stay and simply be
A great thing for my memory
For when I wake, it’s history
and so I continue on my day
With no picture and no way
It’s not as easy as it seems
Remembering my dreams
Poem 6

10. Into the Ocean
by C.J.
I liked how the poet kept her piece short and to the
point. It was more meaningful this way and it truly
makes you think about those who have lost their lives
due to self-harm, otherwise known as suicide. When I
read the poem I imagined a depressed girl, no longer
able to ride the roller coaster of life, sink into a
morbid mindset: it was time to go. There are cliffs,
there are sharp objects, there are overdoses, but this
girl chose the ocean. She sat by the dock as if to
contemplate the last meaning of life and decided that
the sea was her only liberation, her only escape. Its
sad to think that there have been people who have
thought their lives meaningless and chose to drown.
(130)
10
She sat by the dock,
And whispered to the sea.
"Oh my dear ocean,
Please come and take me."
Poem 7

11. Can You Sing a Song?
by Joseph Morris
This poem really reminds me of the average
human’s life. Sure we all go through at least some
of these hardships from time to time but for some
people, stress and tiredness is all a part of the
daily grind. Sometimes we just need to sing when
we feel down, to sing when we feel like we’re not
going to make it through the day, much like how
we need to praise God for what he’s given us even
in our hardships. It’s easy to forget sometimes, but
the poet really reminds us to ask ourselves if we
can sing a song when we feel sad, happy, weird,
goofy, angry, shy, kind, etc. Can you sing a song?
(118)
11
Can you sing a song to greet the sun,
Can you cheerily tackle the work to be done,
Can you vision it finished when only begun,
Can you sing a song?
Can you sing a song when the day's half through,
When even the thought of the rest wearies you,
With so little done and so much to do,
Can you sing a song?
Can you sing a song at the close of the day,
When weary and tired, the work's put away,
With the joy that it's done the best of the pay,
Can you sing a song?
Poem 8

12. Dreams
by Langston Hughes
I liked how Hughes used a few metaphors in the
poem. Firstly, dreams are sometimes fragile, and
anything harming could lead to a broken, fractured,
cracked dream that will take awhile to glue back
together, much like a broken wing on a bird. You
cannot fly with a broken wing so you need to take the
time to rest up and try again in the future. Secondly,
dreams can leave you forever. Sometimes this can
lead to bigger better dreams but other times it can
leave you burnt out, nothing to do nowhere to go: a
barren wasteland of a life. (101)
12
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
Poem 9

13. ’Hope is the thing with feathers’
by Emily Dickinson
“Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.”
Those ending lines really stuck out to me because it’s
true that hope keeps us going, we see examples of
that all the time in our history books, in other places
of the world, and maybe even in our own homes. But
yet, we give nothing to hope in return. Hope is a
powerful thing, It’s possible that the poet went
through a hardship in her life that made her realize
how much we as humans depend on hope to keep us
going no matter what. Like penguins that huddle for
warmth, hope is truly something with feathers, a bird
that can keep us warm at night, and can cheer us up
in the morning with soundless song. (128)
13
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Poem 10

14. Poetry sources
The arrow and the song
page 6 of 101 Great American Poems
Bury me in a free land
page 27 of 101 Great American Poems
I Killed a Spider With my Shoe
written by me
First Fig
page 71 of 101 Great American Poems
What time is it?
written by me
Into the Ocean
written by C.J.
Remembering my dreams
written by me
Can You Sing a Song?
http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/short-inspirational-poems.html
Dreams
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dreams-2/
‘Hope is the thing with feathers’
page 30 of 101 Great American Poems
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15. Photo Credits
Arrow song (pg 4) - https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/19536
Angel (pg 5) - http://pixcooler.com/weeping+angel+png?image=57814376
Candle (pg 6) - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-pritchard/burning-the-candle-at-
bot_1_b_5955256.html
Spider (pg 7) - http://vi.sualize.us/
sketchsepahi_gallery_slides_spider_drawing_picture_7Lps.html
The team (pg 8) - https://sites.google.com/site/firstrobotics107/
Dream (pg 9) - http://www.thepsychicwell.com/metaphysics/all-about-dreams/dream-
themes/
Suicide (pg 10) - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/400609329324735941/
Sing the sun (pg 11) - http://www.listofimages.com/howling-wolves-at-sunset-birds-
firefox-persona-mountain-sunset-trees-widescreen-wolves.html
Hold dreams (pg 12) - http://elgranevapora.blogspot.com/2013_12_01_archive.html
Hope (pg. 13) - http://indodiscovery.com/blog/
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