I love the words you have spoken.
But I’m afraid my heart will be broken.
My first emotion that you have stolen.
Now it’s time for me to get goin’.
Mrs. Wilcox – Dryden (Wilcox)
Mrs. Wilcox
Mrs. Wilcox
is the best
is the best
Mrs. Wilcox
is the best
Drinking Founten – Murphy (Wilcox)
the drinking founten it’s like a thinking founten
water comes out of the Big silver spout
it’s wierd in a sertan way
I had’nt used it entel one day.
Untitled – Emma Bowers
Like a dead sun, your light dims
Hear fluttering, weary
Lids gathering dust
I have not opened them for long
Your lips form my name
As if singing me a song
poisonous to my ears,
Danger corrupting my
Lungs,
I’ve watched you leave and to
someone else you’ve clung.
Attention Spoken Word Poets!
Kelsey May, a graduate of Northview, is beginning a Spoken Word workshop! The first meeting is this Saturday at GVSU’s Pew Campus downtown Grand Rapids, and specifics of the meeting and how to register are as follows:
Please consider joining Rachel Gleason and myself (Kelsey Mayday) for an afternoon workshop that is specifically designed for Grand Rapids area high school students who are interested in poetry! We will have it at the DeVos building on Fulton St. NW (GVSU Pew Campus on Google maps) from 2-4pm on Saturday, February 13.
Please RSVP to this email address, kelseyannemay@gmail.com, by Wednesday, February 10 at midnight with at least two poems (preferably saved as attachments, but in the body of the email is fine too) that you want to work on.
We will have feedback prepared individually and will spend one hour of the workshop sharing these poems. The second hour will be teaching about writing, revising, and performing. We are asking for a registration fee of $10 (cash, card, check, gift card, whatever). If this would hinder you being able to participate, just send me an email!
Invite anyone who you think would be interested! We will also have a small snack, so if you have allergies, please include that in your email.
If you need a ride and cannot find someone to carpool with, you can also email or message me to figure out an arrangement.
This is step one in getting you prepared for an upcoming contest, a possibility to be featured on WYCE Local Radio, and even get onto NPR!
Brick-Ryleigh Spetoskey
Remember when I tied a brick around my ankles
and jumped into the lake?
It took them three minutes and twenty-
eight seconds of searching through the murky water
Until they cut the rope and pulled me above
the icy liquid
And pounded the substance out of my lungs
until my face wasn’t blue and my hands
Released their fists. My mother screamed
my name as she watched the current pull
Me under. My father demanded to be in the
care when they took me away with the
Flashing lights. You told me that you loved me
as I was behind my house, already grabbing
Some rocks. I told you that I loved you
and that’s why I jumped
Untitled-Madison Pell
And there’s just something about your coffee stained lips,
the way they feel pressed up against mine
sending me expresso infused rushes of energy,
along with the need to be yours.
The temporary healing of a flaw that only rest can fix.
Each crinkle and dent of your lips filled with the slightest bit of caffeine aftertaste that I need to get through another day. The taste and feeling only few can handle. Coffee stronger than my damaged and bruised heart,
I realize I have an addiction.
You’re my aftertaste.
I Have Never Been in Love-Anonymous
I have never been in love.
I thought I loved someone
but it turns out, I have to love myself before I can love someone else.
I cannot listen to him paint pictures of how beautiful he thinks I am
while contemplating skipping meals
he painted his love in swooping, lovely strokes
pretty words filling in the white spaces
but every stroke
every word
the more the canvas was covered
the more empty I felt.
I couldn't listen or believe him
for fear of falling into the belief of beauty
only to be pushed back out harshly
pretty words filling in the white spaces
I couldn't see myself as beautiful
when I thought I loved him.
piece by piece
I’m repairing myself.
I’m learning to look in the mirror without turning away
I’m learning it is alright for me to attach beauty to my body.
I still skip meals
I still feel sad
but I am learning I am worth more
more than the words he assigned me
more than how I look.
I think I’m starting to love myself
the words kind and smart mean more than cute
maybe when I finally stop seeing food as failure
and the mirror as a monster
can I start to love someone else
because I
I have never been in love.
Carson McCready-Refuse to Drown
Dec. 7, 2015:
I don’t like going underwater.
The water closes in on me
in a claustrophobic hug
intended to be liberating
but in it I feel trapped.
I feel held down.
Quite literally, I cannot breathe.
This tight embrace
the sea longs to give me
does not make me hate it.
No.
The sea is a playground
full of imaginative potential,
the only limit being drowning.
I refuse to drown.
I refuse to be pulled under
by hungry sea dwellers
and selfish undertows.
I will not be pulled down.
I will frolic.
As if on my own two feet,
I will prance through water
I will swim, no, glide
through this abstract blueness.
I will keep swimming
until I can no longer see land.
There is a certain point in the sea
you can swim out to
and all you can feel is fear.
Fear of sharks
Fear of where the land has gone
Fear of yourself.
I will swim past this point.
This monster called Fear
will sink like rocks thrown into the sea by children.
I will swim out into this curious abyss
with no fear and all of my strength.
My arms and legs will tire.
My throat will become sore.
But I will keep swimming.
My head will stay above water
because I am motivated by a will to live
and I refuse to drown.
Ryleigh Spetoskey – My Garden
When we met, I had a garden full of weeds
The weeds grew and grew, higher and higher
and I was too tired to pick them.
When we met, you helped me pick them
until my garden was bare.
You planted your seeds in the fresh dirt
but you left as soon as the weeds grew back
and you didn’t want to pick them anymore.
My Garden grew weeds faster than before
and I let them grow.
When you came back
You helped me pick the weeds
and a flower started to bloom.
We picked the weeds as they sprouted
not letting them get too big
My Garden became beautiful
You said that I should be among the flowers
But why should I, I said,
Because there’s already flowers in me
and they’re growing right now.
NHS CoffeeHouse 