Former Student Writing

Week 6-15-2014

Since this is my first post-retire­ment entry, I’ve decid­ed to focus on my family–I’d have nev­er made it with­out them.  So the FSW for this week is a poem by my own beloved daugh­ter, Bethany Grace.  Enjoy!

Sole Search­ing

I stepped in love;
it ruined my day.
sticky as gum,
dirty as dung.
Not to wor­ry!  I threw that heart away.

–Bethany Malm­gren

 

Week 8-20-2013

 

One of the things I love about some teenage writ­ers is that they find very wit­ty, pithy ways to say true things.  I have three short poems to illus­trate.  All three of these were writ­ten in 1986, my first year at Clemens.

Hand-me-downs

 

Inno­cence you’re born with

Like a new­ly formed rose.

Cor­rup­tion you grow into

Like your sibling’s clothes.

 

–Ter­ri Hanson

 

A Les­son on Springs

 

The more work that is forced on a spring,

And the more pres­sure it is forced to bear,

The more it becomes a wild and play­ful thing

When it’s set free, so take care.

 

–Robert Wal­ter­bach

 

Why I Don’t Want to Leave My Girl

 

I’ve been beaten,

Kicked, cheat­ed, swindled,

Cussed and laughed at,

Tak­en advan­tage of,

And made penniless

But

The rea­son

Why I don’t want to leave my girl

Is that I want to

See what is

Going to hap­pen next.

 

–Jose Fragoso

 

Week 8–4‑2013

I have cho­sen a poem writ­ten by my for­mer stu­dent and good friend, Lau­ren (Schulze) Rollins. I like the poem because I know how busy Lau­ren is so I under­stand the inspiration–and also because it express­es beau­ti­ful­ly how I feel about the school year approach­ing. Oh yeah, and the snow imagery is nice because it’s so freak­ing hot outside!

I want so bad­ly to live in a snow globe
Where every­body is just
F
R
O
Z
E
N
In one spot for eternity
Smil­ing the bright­est smiles
Obliv­i­ous to the world outside
And watch­ing snow flakes slow­ly float down to the ground
In lazy criss-cross patterns
With no place to go- only to exist
With the twang and jilt of lit­tle music boxes
Play­ing the sweet­est song
Play­ing ever slower
And for that moment I am drawn in
Mesmerized
Until there is no more snow left to fall and music has gone silent

I want so bad­ly to freeze my life just as it is right now
With only you and me in it
Instead of this rushed life set to some­one else’s time schedule
Meet­ing some­one else’s greedy demands

–Lau­ren Rollins

Week 7-28-2013

I only taught Lexy Cas­tri­ot­ta for less than one semes­ter in Cre­ative Writ­ing because she moved away. She was bright and wit­ty and fun. She also had the best per­spec­tive on being a mil­i­tary brat and mov­ing a lot of any­one i ever taught, and I have taught lots of mil­i­tary brats. Here it is:

Chap­ter one: First Days and Great Expectations;
She was the new girl in town; she had it all fig­ured out.
Being a mil­i­tary brat, I move con­stant­ly and nev­er hav­ing been to one school for more than two years has taught me a few lessons.
Les­son num­ber one: hav­ing an atti­tude with the teacher does not impress peo­ple, it makes you look stupid.
Les­son num­ber two: Keep your mouth shut except when you’re smil­ing. Peo­ple don’t like loud mouths so keep a lit­tle bit of you to your­self and they will want to know more.Lesson num­ber three: Be patient. Just because you feel like you have nobody for a week or a cou­ple of months doesn’t mean you won’t find some real­ly great friends lat­er on. This brings me to;
Les­son num­ber four: Don’t set­tle for friends so eas­i­ly. Peo­ple are crazy and if you are the new kid at the school no one is like­ly to tell you who the stalk­er kids are and the stalk­er kids will seek to have a clean start with you. I have learned this the hard way many times.
Les­son num­ber five: The sad truth is rela­tion­ships end once you move. I have found that after awhile all the chit chat your old friends have you can keep up with but why would they care about the new names you bring up. Old friend­ships even real­ly real­ly fond ones come to a dis­ap­point­ing halt after you move no mat­ter how many plans you make to dri­ve a thou­sand miles for each other.
Les­son num­ber six: Look for­ward not back­ward. Its nat­ur­al to be upset the first few months at a new place but keep­ing your head wrapped around how good it used to be just gets you nowhere.
Les­son num­ber sev­en: Live day by day. Carpe Diem. What­ev­er. In a life where you’re nev­er sure how long you’ll be any­where look­ing at the big pic­ture is depress­ing. If you take rela­tion­ships day by day (which nev­er works if the oth­er per­son involved knows you are mov­ing because they aren’t and they DO see the big pic­ture) and enjoy the moments you’re liv­ing now, you will have a much hap­pi­er life
Les­son num­ber eight: Some­times it’s okay to eat in the library. Lunch will always be the most stress­ful peri­od after you move for awhile until you make friends. It’s okay if you have to eat by your­self or befriend a teacher or two until you are comfortable.
Les­son num­ber nine: Expect noth­ing. Don’t set your­self up for dis­ap­point­ment but don’t be over­ly cyn­i­cal too. Go in to the school like it’s just anoth­er day and see if it sur­pris­es you.

I think those were the only lessons I could take from my expe­ri­ences. Mov­ing always always sucks, (unless you’re leav­ing a school where every­one hates you) but stay­ing pos­i­tive helps a lot. I think that mov­ing all the time has giv­en me major seniori­tis and a bad case of com­mit­ment pho­bia but I’m hap­py with the per­son I’ve become because of all the changes I endure; and I wouldn’t have it any oth­er way.–Lexy Castriotta

Week  7-21-2013

I always advise my Cre­ative Writ­ing stu­dents to avoid writ­ing rhyming poet­ry unless they absolute­ly must.  This is because most rhyming poet­ry sucks (sad, but true).  I would say that some­where between 30 to 50% of my stu­dents usu­al­ly ignore my advice and write rhyming poet­ry any­way.  Every once in a while I get a gem.  Eun’s was a gem.  Check it out.  (I’m includ­ing a pic­ture of the page because it is pretty…the poem follows.)

 

Scan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– For­ev­er –

Spring is the time when flow­ers first bloom

Oh, what a sight to see

And the birds sing their song at the break of dawn

While rest­ing upon a tree

          But they won’t be there

          When the hot sun glares

Nothing’s for­ev­er…

 

The bright, bright sun shim­mers her rays

Down to the deep blue ocean

And everyone’s rest­less, all sit­ting around

Mak­ing no effort of motion

          But these will be gone

          Because autumn will come

Nothing’s for­ev­er…

 

The crisp dry leaves fall from the trees

Gen­tly with­out a sound

And the cool autumn rain which cleans the air

Faith­ful­ly drops down

          We all wish they would stay

          But winter’s on its way

Nothing’s for­ev­er…

 

The first sight of frost cheers all hearts

From every­one young and old

And the blind­ing white snow, a gift from heaven

Will slow­ly turn every­thing cold

          But even these can’t last

          For every­thing must pass

Nothing’s for­ev­er…

 

That’s how our love ended

Like the change of the seasons

We knew it would happen

Didn’t need any reasons

 

So wipe those tears

And have no sorrow

Things always come back

If you wait ‘til tomorrow

 

It’s a con­tin­u­ing cycle

Which will nev­er end

And the smile will be back

On your face again

 

So Maybe…

          Some things are forever

                                                –Eun Tremain

 

Week 7-14-2013

I have two poems off of one page from the 1996 Quixote. One is by Wendy Mayes and the oth­er by Tra­cie Robin­son. I remem­ber Tra­cie quite well–she was in my daugh­ter’s grade (class of ’97), I taught her in Fresh­men Eng­lish (and Cre­ative Writ­ing, I think), and she was qui­et and bril­liant and thought­ful. Both my daugh­ter and I have tried to find her through Face­book with­out any luck. I don’t remem­ber Wendy Mayes at all. I vague­ly remem­ber a girl named Wendy Hayes, so per­haps it is a typo. I chose the poems because the first is a wise med­i­ta­tion on Kind­ness, and the sec­ond on Discernment.

tracie & wendy '96

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WWeek 7–7‑2013

The FSW for this week is a poem called “The Stranger” by Brit­tney Ire­land. I chose this poem because as I was leaf­ing through old Quixotes, I real­ly liked it, and also because Brit­tney played ten­nis for me for four years, and I didn’t remem­ber her writ­ing any­thing. But this poem is fun­ny and actu­al­ly pret­ty sen­su­ous (see relat­ed pho­to­graph at Pho­to of the Week).

–dm

brittney

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Week 6-30-2013

One of the rea­sons I select­ed this poem this week is because I’ve nev­er seen or heard from the girl who wrote it since she walked out of my class­room. Her name is Allyson Helms, and she is one of the finest poets that I got to teach. She was a Fea­tured Poet in the 1994 edi­tion of the Quixote, and she had sev­en poems typed out on two pages, no art­work, just her words. They’re all quite good—I chose this one because it’s my favorite at the moment (but that could change). Oh yeah, she also has a broth­er named Jere­my Helms. I couldn’t find either of them on a Face­book search…but they prob­a­bly weren’t Face­book kind of peo­ple. If any­one who reads this hap­pens to know what’s become of her, fill me in—or tell her I was think­ing about her and admir­ing her work.

–dm

CHILD AND THE FIREFLY
Found beauty;
tried to shel­ter it
behind curled fingers,
peek­ing in,
watch it move
stir with life
glow of spirit,
and hold tightly-
“keep­ing it safe”-
self­ish child,
grasp­ing on and
destroy­ing life with
clenched palms,
mind says
stu­pid bug, why’d he die,
but you killed it,
only want­ed your
eyes to see, thus
it is only powder
in your cupped hands,
wipe them off,
catch another-
learn noth­ing and grow older,
always shel­ter beauty,
and for­ev­er wipe dirty hands.

–Allyson Helm
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Okay, I am real­ly excit­ed about this fea­ture, the For­mer Stu­dent Writ­ing of the Week, on my web­site.  Most of the things I plan to post here, I con­fess, I am jeal­ous of, because I wish I had writ­ten them.  You are also going to under­stand why my very favorite class to teach was always Cre­ative Writ­ing.  I’ve thought a lot about what should be the very first post, and I think my deci­sion is pret­ty cool.  The irony is that I nev­er taught this kid, but his poem has appeared in prac­ti­cal­ly every edi­tion of the Quixote (Samuel Clemens High School lit­er­ary mag­a­zine) that we ever pro­duced.  This kid was in the Cre­ative Writ­ing class that my pre­de­ces­sor, Trish Thomp­son, taught.  The way I heard the sto­ry, he wrote this poem and then he died, in a car crash or some­thing.  I’m not mak­ing light of it—I don’t know because I nev­er knew him and it was a long time ago.  They decid­ed to use his poem as the first page of the Quixote, and we decid­ed to keep doing that.  If any­one who reads this has any knowl­edge of Bri­an Grand­staff, please pass it on to me.  I am very curi­ous.  I hope you enjoy his poem.

–dm

Quixote Poem, written by Brian Grandstaff

Quixote poem writ­ten by Bri­an Grand­staff from Samuel Clemens High School