Sunday, February 4, 2018

A Series of Friends

Around 1st grade we sit next to each other. We giggle and swap doodles. We share notes. I get 100. Emily gets 70.

Around 6th grade I meet my match. Esther throws the ball, and for the first time, I am out. I thought kickball was supposed to be fun.

Around 13th grade I don’t stop laughing. Tone-deaf matched with melodious perfection but Abigail doesn't care. I am me.

Around 5th grade I learn what it means to be bullied. Rachel moves her desk away from mine, and an invisible wall goes up. How is someone capable of making someone so popular feel like a leper. But she did. And I was.

Around 9th grade I find someone quietly amazing. We are the dummies of the smartest. We study. We ball. We talk. We cry. We love. Allison teaches me what it means to be a true friend.

Around 15th grade I learn what it means to unconditionally love. I am introduced to the thin line between love and hate. I learn to give. I learn to forgive. Beth began as a teammate but is so much more. An unlikely friendship. But who cares?

Around 12th grade I sacrifice myself. Melissa holds a strange power over me. I want to be her friend so badly. I share my secrets. What do I get in return?


Around 14th grade I transform Sarah. And she changes me. I see a spark of something truly astounding and I hold on tight. The ride is the most amazing one I have been on. I watch her grow and blossom and in so doing, I do as well. Sarah loves and appreciates me for who I am. And I her. What makes a Best Friend.

7 comments:

  1. I love the structure of the poem, and how each line begins with "around.."
    I love how the language is so simple, but also perfectly sets up the image that you are trying to show. It's very sweet, and to the point. I think that some words are unnecessary, and if taken out, would make the line more clear. For example, "An impossibly unlikely friendship." Not only can you take out one of those words, but what does an "impossibly unlikely friendship" mean? A friendship that one can never come across? But haven't you? I was just a little confused, but I could be reading it wrong. I love the last line of the poem. It concludes the piece really nicely.

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  2. I like the structure of the poem, the way you start each line the same. In the third paragraph you have a couple repetitions. You use the word "fun" repetitively and repeat the sentence "I don’t stop laughing." I see how it can be a creative choice but personally it throws me off a bit. Also, at the start of each line, you summarize what you're about to say which takes away from the rest of the line (show don't tell).

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  3. I love how you formatted the poem and how each stanza begins with the word "around..". You cold have easily said " When this" or "once when" and that would have been conventional.By starting each line with "around.." you peak the readers interest by automatically seeming different. I loved the line "We are the dummies of the smartest." You aren't being shy, you are being real and the reader connects to your poem because of that. When you said "an impossibly unlikely friendship" I felt that you may have been a little verbose. I don't think both the word "impossible and unlikely" are needed and it would have made a stronger sentence to use just one. In another line you write, "I found someone quietly amazing" here I feel both words are needed and used well. Amazing is usually identified as more extroverted but the word quiet is usually associated with introverts by grouping both opposite terms together it creates a powerful and unlikely sentence.

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  4. I love how you jump between different times in your life, and not in chronological order. It's more of the way you learned and I think this poem does it so well. I also loved how you added 13th and 14th grades into the piece - it shows that even out of grade school, there is something to learn. I also think that the fact that each stanza has a different name attached to it is significant, because it shows that friendships evolve and sometimes wither away. Great job!

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  5. You describe the progression of a friendship beautifully. This kind of relationship between two girls who grow up is so important and very difficult to describe, but you did it with great skill! My one suggestion would be to try to, when you get back to editing, cut out some abstractions like " Israel is fun. Touring is fun. Karaoke is amazing." and, in the same space, describe one scene powerfully. Thank you for sharing!!

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  6. I love this poem! Truly a pleasure to read. I love that it is written in prose yet has so much depth to it. This is exactly what poetry should be. Incredibly deep specifically because of it's content. The writer of this poem is clearly very thought out as she was able to instill with simple words the development of friendship- and she conveys this in such a personal manner!
    I love that each friend is described in a unique way while the repetition of key lines allows the poem to be one cohesive unit.
    I look forward to reading more of your work!

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  7. This poetry prompt has been a popular one over the years with my students here at Stern, and I can see why: it lets you use prose in a poetic form, so it's a nice bridge into poetry.

    This is a nice first step for the class. I agree with the comment above about how this poem does a good job shuffling time and exploring a non-linear structure. That's a good thing to learn how to do.

    That said, I would like to see a little more ... you know ... poetry here. By that I mean language that reflects the tools of poetry like imagery, metaphor, using sounds in language, etc. So it's great that this form allowed you to use prose to express your emotions. Now, the next step, is to work on using the tools that poetry has to offer.

    There really isn't much descriptive language here for my mind to latch on to. The phrase "show don't tell" refers to using language that appeals to the senses, rather than language that flatly tells what happens. The parts of this poem that do the best job SHOWING me things are phrases like "We giggle and swap doodles." That's actually the only place in the poem that comes to life as an image in my mind. Most of the time you are TELLING me things, rather than showing me things. You tell me that "Israel is fun. Touring is fun. Karaoke is amazing." But that is telling, not showing. You tell me that you sing, but you don't let me here the song. You tell me that you learn a lot of things. You tell me about tears. You tell me that you learned about bullying, but I have no idea what happened. Lots of telling. I want more showing. So for the next poem, I challenge you to TELL as little things as possible and use descriptive language to show the things you first thought of merely telling.

    You can do it!

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