Julia+Boyer

**// Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie - //** **// True Poems flee. //** **// ~Emily Dickinson //**
 * // To see the Summer Sky //**

**// Like butterflies in Spring //** **// Poetry awakens the Spirit, //** **// stirs the imagination and explores //** **// the possibilities with each stroke of its rhythmic wings. //** **// ~Jamie Lynn Morris //** Bebop  Memory Poem:

Laughs of innocent children: ndsofnreofnrieon Me, my friend Eat celery with peanut butter bfewofnriwonrieonfri Crunch A house, warm and safe Fills with the fall air the door feuwfenow opens Wrapped in the arms of a grim parent The smell of their coat Something is fneiwo gone...

Her tail curled Her ears pointed We put her in a tutu once, she didn't care a bit I used to lie on top of her her chest rose and fell

Chirps of life-she used to bark Me, my family-minus one We walk on leaves-she used to run fnrieonripgnriepgnrieognri Crunch Lungs fill with brisk, wet air-she loved the woods Filled with memories of Bebop Holding ashes in your tiny, pale hand The smell of the woods-the smell of her fur I let  fbureoriognreig go…

Ode to Silence: you're in the bedrooms of sleeping babies you're in the compartments of trains ticking away down a track you're in the eyes of predators as they spot their prey you're in the waiting rooms of hospitals- with the linoleum floors bouncing rays of light onto worried faces you're in the snowy morning days- disturbed by a young bird's call

so easily broken

you're in the houses of troubled families you're what fills the gaps after "I love you"

so easily broken- yet break so easily

you live in graveyards on cold misty mornings you're admired by Quakers in their meeting houses-by Buddhist in their temples you set moods on disasters-on paradises

so easily broken-yet break so easily so admired-so feared so desired-so hated [ nfewongireongriongiroengiroengiroengiornegipfniro <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">silence <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #ffffff; font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;">nfiroegnrieognreiognreionbiortnbiotrnbiotrnbiornbiorenbiorenbiroenironfi <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> ]

<span style="color: #ff6e00; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">She's so... <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Riff Poem:

i WILL wash these dishes-I'll wash them for you do YOU know how much you hurt her, sir? you, yes you YOU are weak-pitiful....I pity you, sir SHE needs to be strong-no room for weakness compensation, compensation, sir YOU wrap yourself in a blanket of booze SHE wraps herself in her family-not that she can choose SHE's so strong (I saw a tear once) i know i don't have to wash the dishes...no, i don't have to wash the dishes but, sir, i think i WILL the sudsy water will wash away the pain of your crime-that's what my wish is that yo can be my hero once more <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">

A Boy Named Pyramus <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> Sonnet: Pyramus was born on the sixth of June. His skin was pale; his eyes were black as tar ‘How normal he is,’ his parents would croon. With a name like Pyramus? How Bizarre!

As he grew up, he became smart, as one His age should be. He grew without much fuss He wondered what he would have to become… Because he had a name like Pyramus.

He could be a doctor, helping the sick Or an actor atop a bright lit stage He could just fly a plane across Brunswick He must be known, he cannot simply age

And then one sleepless night the moon did gloss And smiled to himself I am, I am Pyramus <span style="color: #1ee633; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Study: Maya Angelou <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> The thing that’s most interesting about Maya Angelou is her ability to be so consistent and also try so many different things. Many of her poems such as //I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Alone and Still I Rise// which are written in 4 line stanzas with a repeated ‘chorus’ every other stanza. For example in //Why the Caged Bird Sings,// Angelou repeats the line ‘his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so the caged bird opens his throat to sing’ and ‘for the caged bird sings of freedom’. She does this in these poems to bring the reader back to these messages of oppression or hope like in //Still I Rise.// She repeats different variations of the line ‘still I rise’. It’s a very unsubtle way to show the reader the main message of her poems. There are other poems where her messages are short and powerful like //Insomniac// and //Passing Time.// Her structure is shorter and has concise meanings. She uses less of her flamboyant words and she tries to challenge her reader’s thinking in a short, clipped way. It’s an interesting change from poems where she dances around a theme or a “scene” and then uses her “chorus” to get to the main idea. It shows a different side of her; she’s more vulnerable and, in a way, more relatable. Reading all of her beautiful, cheery poems make me worried she’s too perfect and not human. In fact Maya Angelou had a challenging childhood. She was molested at the age of seven by her mother’s boyfriend and didn’t speak for 6 years. In //Men// she explores women’s relationships with men: “A quick hug. Soft into your defenselessness. A little more. The hurt begins. Wrench out a smile that slides around the fear.’ She grew up with her grandmother in Arkansas in the heat of racial discrimination. She has been a civil rights activist for her entire life. Most of her poems reach out to everyone and ask how they themselves are oppressed. She’s written about being a woman, being black and simply being human. //Alone// tells us that ‘nobody no nobody/ can make it out here alone’. Her consistent theme is hope and freedom. [|Maya Angelou Poems]

Study: Julia Boyer Since I'm a first time poet, I didn't have a certain style that I liked to stick too. I was really inspired by Pablo Neruda and Jamaica Kincaid. I was upset that I didn't get the chance to write a poem like //Girl;// which was written as a block of text with semicolons breaking up sentences. After writing my memory poem and my ode, i noticed I liked to write in 4 line stanzas like Maya Angelou. So, like Maya Angelou, I explored other ways of writing. In my next poem, I wrote a bigger stanza. I also played with punctuation; the only time I used it was for the one question, "Do you know how much you hurt her, sir?" I also played with capitalization; "YOU", "SHE" and "WILL" were the only words in caps to make the comparisons and the determination resonate. I didn't have the same themes to my poems; I just went with what I was feeling at the time. I tried some new things and I'm really excited to try more of them in the future.

Artwork- This was inspired by the lines from //I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:// "and dips his [The free bird] wings in the orange sun rays and dares to/ claim the sky" and "But a caged bird stands on a grave of dreams/ his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream"