Poetry Project

Poetry Project

Two Original Poems

My Stars

The stars

Gather tonight.

The stars

Shine bright.

The stars

Surround me.

Yet the stars

Just blink.

Yet the stars

Just twinkle.

Yet my head,

Stays empty.

My stars

Inspire me.

My stars

Delight me.

But not

Today.

But the moon

Will always rise.

But the night

Will always come.

Yes, my stars are here

To stay.

Response:

I wrote this poem inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night”. I didn’t know what to write about it no matter how long I stared at the beautiful painting. So I wrote a poem about not knowing what to write about no matter how long I stared at stars.

The Death Parade

Inspired by the album “The Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance

My eyes open.

I’m in a place that I’ve never seen.

It’s grey.

It’s foggy.

In ruins.

In the back of my head,

I can hear an even, continuous beeping sound,

Very, very quietly,

Beep… Beep… Beep…

I walk forward.

The path I’m on seems to be

Glowing.

I don’t remember how I got here.

I don’t remember what I was doing

Before I got here.

I just keep walking down the path.

Then I hear drums,

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat…

As they get louder,

I can see a float

From a parade

Come closer to me.

It breaks from the fog and comes into view.

And the beeping,

Yet still quiet,

Gets faster.

On the float,

There is a man,

A skeleton man,

In a black marching band uniform.

He is marching in place

To the beat of the drum,

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat…

I see the drum behind him,

Along with other band members.

They are all men.

Skeleton men,

In black marching band uniforms.

And the beeping,

Yet still quiet,

Gets faster.

The skeleton man in front,

The one marching in place,

Smiles when he sees me.

A big toothy smile

That a skeleton would have.

And the beeping,

Yet still quiet,

Gets faster.

The float stops.

The drums stop.

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-

The man in the front,

The skeleton man,

Crouches down,

At the edge of the float.

Then he extends a long arm,

A skeleton arm,

Out to me.

I stare at it.

Then I reach for it shyly,

And touch his skeleton hand.

Suddenly,

The memories rush back.

The hospital bed,

The tubes in my skin,

My family around me,

My mother crying,

“She’s too young!”

I remember my eyes

Slowly closing.

And the beeping,

Yet still quiet,

Stops,

And turns into one,

Long,

Continuous,

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…

I smile back at the man,

The skeleton man.

He’s gripping my hand in his,

His skeleton hand,

And pulls me up onto the float.

I sit on the edge of it,

And the skeleton man

Sits next to me.

The float starts to move again,

We move farther and farther,

Away into the grey fog.

The long beep fades away,

And instead,

I listen to the the drums.

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat.

Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat…

Response:

This poem is inspired by the album “The Black Parade” by my favorite band, My Chemical Romance. The album tells a story of a man who has cancer and dies and the death comes to him in the form of the Black Parade. So I wrote a poem about a young girl who has cancer and dies and then the Black Parade comes to get her. The skeleton men represent the 5 members of My Chemical Romance.

Sonnet

Saviour

I find that many people of my age,

Tend not to care of my horrific state.

While everyone is glad to turn the page,

I keep my troubles like a heavy weight.

But you, you saved me from the darkest pit,

My tortured soul locked in a fright-filled room.

You held the key that got me out of it,

Your eyes shining brightly like two full moons.

You've stayed with me since I was very young.

Your soul has never wandered off too far.

You're in my art and in the songs I’ve sung.

I’ve realized how significant you are.

Please promise me you’ll always stay with me.

Without you I don't know what I would be.

Response:

This poem is a about a special person to me that has always been on my side no matter what. He has always been there for me and has probably saved my life. I wrote this poem about him to thank him.

Heart Poem Response

Edgar Allan Poe was an amazing poet during the 1800s. He often wrote of creepy things and of death, such as one of his most famous works, “The Raven”. In “The Raven”, using the word "Nevermore” and some other literary devices are very important to the meaning of the poem.

The plot of the poem is of a man is grieving over his dead wife/girlfriend Lenore. Then a raven comes into his room and tells him that he will never see her again by repeating the word “Nevermore”. This shows that the meaning of the poem is that what’s gone is gone and will never come back. This is first shown by the man answering the door to his room and whispering “Lenore?” This shows that the man wants her back so much that he can even fool himself that someone who is dead can come back. Then the raven comes in and repeats the word “Nevermore” to everything the man says about wanting Lenore back. The word “Nevermore” shows that Lenore is gone forever and will never come back. Poe conveys most of his ideas through the word “Nevermore”. It is the most powerful word in the poem, since it is repeated the most and is what shows the meaning the most. This literary device used is repetition.

Poe uses more literary devices than repetition. Another is imagery. The poem is really more of a poetically written story, complete with dialogue, action, and description. This really puts an image of the setting and what’s happening in the poem. Another literary device is word choice. Some new, unknown words to most people in this poem are actually very old English words. For example, “quoth”, which means quote or spoke. Some others are “nepenthe”, which is a drug that banishes grief or trouble from a person's mind, and “quaff”, which is to drink. The connotations of the words are very old and sad to give the poem an old and sad feeling. For example, the old words stated previously and sad words like “melancholy” and “disaster”. Some words give a creepy or scary tone to the poem too, such as “devil”, “demon”, “evil”, “unmerciful”, and having the bird be a “raven”, a creepy black bird, rather than a dove or pigeon.

The poem reminds of me of creepy movies or books. It also reminds me of the music that I like, such as My Chemical Romance and Evenescence, because like my music, this poem tells of the harsh truths of reality and it talks a lot about death and confronting and accepting it. The poem connects to the real world with it’s message; what’s gone is gone and can’t come back. This is a lesson we could all learn. The poem makes me want to know what happened to Lenore and how she died. I also want to know if the raven was a figment of the man’s imagination, or if it was real and the poem is more supernatural. Personally, I always believed the latter, but I’d like to know what Poe thought.

Overall, using the word "Nevermore”, as well as some other literary devices, is important to the main idea of the poem “The Raven”. This is my favorite poem because it tells a story, it’s creepy and dark, just everything about it is something I love. Plus Poe is my absolute favorite poet. In poetry, literary devices can make a poem sound beautiful, dark, happy, sad, anything. If only we could use these devices as well as Edgar Allan Poe.