Poetry again

As you all know, I'm crazy about poetry. This time, my students wrote haikus - famous Japanese poems whose tradition dates from 9th century. Actually, haiku is more than a type of a poem - it's a way of looking at the world around us and seeing something deeper. Haikus' subjects are nature and feelings. They are simple in form and their pattern goes as follows:

1st verse - 5 syllables
2nd verse - 7 syllables
3rd verse - 5 syllables

Easy, right? Well, try and see... My students already experienced how deceptive appearances may be... :D Still, they had lots of fun!!!


water flowing slow
but when liquid starts to boil
the vessel could break


she is my cocaine
laughter like a butterfly's
never let her go


you said Valentine's
I call it a shitty day
it is just Tuesday

your eyes are so blue
your arm - so strong, your vow - real
your heart - why so dark?

fight for your belief
don't fight for others' belief
let it be their own


snow covers your trail
white flakes fall mercilessly
silent rejection

Have a great week! I miss you so much...

Footprints on the sand, ripples on the water...

Alejandra's and Kristel's beautiful poems reminded me of my favorite one when I was in high school and, as a teenager, I was looking for an answer to the eternal question: "How shall I live?"
The poem was written by a Polish poet - Leopold Staff, who started writing during the Modernism period and remained active until his death in 1957.
This is the only translation I've found and it's quite good though I prefer the definition of life in the original version: 'Lo, this is life: nothing, but still enough'...





TO LOVE AND LOSE

To love and lose, to thirst and pity too,
To fall in anguish and rise up again,
To cry ”away!” Yet longingly to woo-
Lo, this is life: mere vanity and pain.

Men traverse parching deserts for one gem;
For one great pearl, the ocean they explore;
Then die, and all that lingers after them
Are footprints on the sand and ripples on the water.

"Moment"

I'm reading "The Freedom Writers Diary" (which I bought at the ASU Bookstore, together with a pile of other books, now resting comfortably on my bookcase) and I'd like to share this beautiful poem with you. It moved me deeply.

"Moment"

Let him wish his life
For the sorrows of a stone
Never knowing the first thread
Of these
Never knowing the pain of ice
As its crystals slowly grow
Needles pressing it on the heart

To live forever
And never feel a thing
To wait a million lifetimes
Only to erode and become sand
Wish not for the stone
But for the fire
Last only moments
But change everything

Oh to be lightning
To exist for less than a moment
Yet in that moment
To expose the world to every open eye
Oh to be thunder
To clap and ring
To rumble into memories
Minds and spines

To chill the soul and shake the very ground
Pounding even the sand
Into smaller pieces
Or the mountain
Brooding, extinct
Yet gathering for one fatal moment
The power to blow the top clean off the world
Oh to last the blink of an eye and leave nothing
But nothing unmoved behind you

Vincent Guilliano - January 9, 1991

What would you choose: to live an eternity and not change a thing around you, or exist for the blink of an eye and alter everything?

More poetry time

After a terribly hectic time at school I had, now the time has come to slow down a bit. The school inspection carried out by Very Important Authorities is over, I’m done with the paperwork I hate and finally I am able to take a deeper breath and come back to what I’m enjoying the most – teaching!

These days I’m giving the lessons on the unreal past to my students and I’m sure you know they are having a hard time with all these ‘wishes’ and ‘if onlys’, ‘would rathers’ and ‘as ifs’… To make things easier, I prepared a powerpoint presentation about expressing regrets – now when I have a digital projector in my classroom I can do all the stuff I haven’t been able before!!! As a closing activity, in order to revise grammar terminology and different grammar structures, I had my students write a short poem. The format is really simple and it goes as follows:

1. Noun

2. Adjective + and + adjective

3. Verb + adverb

4. Like or as

5. If only or I wish

Some students strictly stuck to the format, some of them didn’t, but it was ok – they were imaginative and creative and that was what I wanted.

Let me share some of them with you:

Life
Crazy and unpredictable
Rushing madly
Like a natural phenomenon
If only I could know the answers to all the questions

Life
Long and short
Going desperately
Like a crazy clock
If only I could turn back the time


Life
both black and white
clinging to the happiness left
like a trout against the stream
If only we could fly!

Play station
Gripping and fun
So excellent
Like Megan Fox
If only I had money for it

An old wise man
Experienced by life and marked with its scars
Persistently trying to pass down his wisdom
Like a book trying to make us live with dignity
If only I had listened to him when I could

Friends
False and trustless
Lying with every step they take
Like the worst enemy
If only people didn’t lie…

Bums
drunk and stinking
sitting desperately
like a tree in the forest
If only I could help them.

The suicide
Potent and painful
Hoping naively
Like an eternal oblivion
If only she had known what you feel for her

The assassin
Strong and infallible
Killing cruelly
Like his inviolable faith
If only he knew Allah had never called his name

Heart
True and false
Loving desperately
Like a young lover
If only I had understood that!

And this is something especially for us ;D

Teachers
Smart and friendly
Teaching so quickly
Like a fastest car
If only I had my own petrol station!