Poetry Notebook

Every Note Counts

selected by Caterina Aragon

Description

Music can change they way you feel in those days when you really need it. The kind of genre you like shows your personality like Pop, or Death Metal, or Classical. All music is played for the singer and audience to enjoy its melody and lyrics, and to change your mood if you have had one of those dark days. Music will always be carried in you MP3 player inside your pocket no matter where you are.

Synopsis

The poems in this notebook will be about music.

• Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness By John Donne
• Piano by D.H. Lawrence
• The Guitar by Federico Garcia Larco
• Latin & Soul by Victor Hernandez Cruz
• Go Greyhound by Bob Hicok
• Here and Now by Stephen Dunn
• On 52nd Street by Philip Levine
• Listening to Jazz Now by Jimmy Santiago Baca
• Water Music by Robert Creeley

Lemon Freeze-Benjamin Moore-2025 50

The gentle light breeze

pushes my hair back

softly, slowly, swiftly.

The sun shined and glimmered

like diamonds

on the buildings and monuments

of the beautiful Italy.

Each green leaf swayed

with the wind,

and the serene ice cream shop

is encompassed by people

who wish to get

the sweet gelato.

I get a lemon popsicle.

I get it all the time.

It's like my breakfast,

the important meal of the day.

The sweet taste

of the lemon popsicle,

the color of

a garden of leaves,

fills my mouth with delight,

and refreshes my throat.

You should try stracchiatella

or yogurt

or mint!

My brother says.

He taps my shoulder

with his thick-tree-branch fingers.

I ignore him.

He pulls my headphones,

I put them back in,

I roll my eyes,

and walk away.

His furry

was the fire

that burns a whole forest,

like the Atlantic ocean

once you reach

the open sea.

What joy

the taste of a frozen lemon

held by a popsicle stick!

You sour queen,

I hear my brother say.

I giggle,

and pick up the pace

as I reach

the green, gorgeous park

where I,

the sour queen,

can enjoy

this popsicle.

The Color of Water

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

Publisher: The Berkley Publishing Group

Genre: Memoir

Where I got it: It was recommended to me by Mrs. Meadows.

One Sentence Summary: As a little kid, James McBride has had to live with his Jewish mother and his eleven other siblings without a father, and as his mother tells him her story of how she found herself with her two dead husbands and her twelve kids, James tells us how this is impacting his life as a growing child by the way he lives discovering thing such as alcohol, drugs, and the way he should live his life.

First sentence of the book: I'm dead.

First Chapter Review: Rachel-James's mother- tells us how she doesn't belong in her Jewish family anymore after running away from her house in the South. Her father was a very serious man who cared about the money, and really never cared about his handicap wife as he takes care of the shop they had. Rachel and her little sister, Dee Dee, are the only ones to take care of her mother, but Rachel had the biggest responsibility as the oldest sister to do the chores and clean the shop. One day she decided to escape and live her life in New York leaving her past as a Jewish girl.

Verdict: I seriously adore this book because of how James and his mother really connect as mother and son. Their experience make the book delightful to read.

Cover Comments: The cover shows a picture of James, his mother, and his little sister. He is sort of distant from his mother, in the picture, compared to his sister which shows how his mother always pushed him aside so he could realize himself how his life should go.

We Want to Go Home

We want to go home

The only place

where the sweet sound

of our mothers voice

Echoes through the walls.

We want to go home

If we get stuck

on a tree

or lost

in the big city,

our fathers’,

with their paled pink skin,

would bring us together

Again.

We want to go home

I wish my auntie was here.

I wish my father...

Oh, whats the use!

We want to go home

The conch,

with its smooth paled pink color,

so pure,

so innocent,

Is all we got.

We want to go home

That conch,

sitting on that rock,

brings us together

as the world cracks

and we drown

In the deep dark blue sea.

We want to go home.

That’s all we want.

Where I'm From

I'm from the kitchen,

from Barilla

and wooden spoons.

I'm from the oven,

black on the outside,

burning fire on the inside.

I'm from the basil plantations,

the garden where tomatoes grow

to pick the best ones

to make the sauce.

I'm from family dinners,

and Christmas presents,

from Maria and Miguel,

from the Aragon family.

I'm from screaming,

shrieking,

and the tobacco smelling bed-sheets.

From "don't touch that knife"

and "be organized".

I'm from a family

who was forced

to be Christian,

but lets me be what I want,

from seafood pasta and cream,

a forbidden combination.

From the talks in the car

about politics with mom,

the back pains,

and hard-workers.

I'm from that small tree

where each leaf

is a different color,

from that short branch

where my leaf stands there... alone.

CNN Student News

Hi, I'm Carl Azus and this is CNN Student News. I hope you enjoy this new fifteen minute, no commercial headline.

Nobody ever expected such catastrophic disaster to happen to the second most industrial country in Asia.

It happened in Sendai, Japan at 2:36 pm in March 10th, 2011. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Sendai leaving pieces of broken houses, and buildings around the city. Many Japanese people are left homeless by this earthquake and more than ten thousand men and women are reported missing. Family members are felling a pang of fear and preoccupation for the missing loved ones. But that was not the worst part.

A capacious amount of water--that used to be beautiful azure water-- flooded the Northern part of Japan. The tsunami never decelerated, but it flooded the streets with debris, cars, and boats as citizens tried to go on roof tops or find a high level point to be safe from the abhorring water.

This tsunami did not facilitate things for the Japanese rescuers. Every single second is crucial for them to find the missing victims of this atrocious disaster. There is no time to banter around, but the fastidious parts of broken houses and wood make it hard for them to find these people and get them medical help.

Barack Obama knew it was important for the U.S.A. had to help Japan. The Red Cross, SWAT team, and the Ronald Reagan ship (which is deploying food and water supplies to Japan) were sent there to proceed on the rescue for the missing people. The SWAT team used grapples to bring down a group to take the injured victims to a capacious hospital that will assist them as soon as possible.

More adept SWAT teams and soldiers around the world are starting to help Japan to find the trapped victims, but even is the victims are not audible, rescuers from around the world will do everything to find them and save their lives.

I’m Carl Azus and this is CNN Student News. Thank you for watching.

Book Review

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Girl, Interrupted has the meaning of Susanna’s life being interrupted all of the sudden. She had to go to rehabilitation because of depression and suicidal thoughts, which turned her life around and she discovers things she has never imagined before. One day, Susanna went to Fricks, which was like an art museum, and she notices a painting where this girl was sitting in her music class and her teacher was trying to get her attention, but the girl didn’t want to be in that class.

When Susanna sees this painting, her life is protracted in her mind and she realizes that her life was also interrupted too, when she was seventeen.

The memoir is about Susanna Kaysen, who was sent to a hospital because of her depression and her thoughts of suicide and she tells about her days there.

The memoir is organized in a way that shows how she first got involved in the hospital, then her thoughts about it and why she went there. Then she writes about her experience in the hospital and the people she meets. After that, she writes her thoughts again about the hospital and describes how they have affected her life. Later, in the book, she talks about what she wants to be and decides how her life is going to go in the future and if she wants to get married or be alone. Sometimes, Susanna puts some records and voluntary applications papers that were given to her when she left the hospital.

The memoirist came to realize how she wanted to go on with her life with no one there for her. She was very independent because she felt like nobody understood her and she kept on realizing it when she grew into a woman. Also, she starts to realize how life gets difficult when you have a bigger issue. Her surroundings change as her days pass in the hospital. She meets and sees girls that are crazy, schizophrenic, depressed, etc… Almost all the things she realizes are about how you don’t have freedom, how things are better in a way, and how she wants her life to go.

Lines We Love:

“I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future.” Pg. 136

“Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen.” Pg. 167