Poetry in My Life

Hello. I'm at work. I forgot my laptop but I decided to write any way, even if it's in the form of this blog during lunch.

When I cleaned out my things from my dad's house recently I also found the poetry notebook I turned in as my final for my Creative Writing Poetry class in the Fall of 1992.

Just looking at that date brings back memories. It was my last semester of college and it was a very significant time in my life. My life took an extraordinary turn the very next month when I started working for the Chronicle shortly after graduation.

I looked over the poems that I wrote and they just exude of my innocence of life. I still had very romantic ideas and thought that life was wrapped up nicely with a bow like in fairy tales.

I had recently bumped into an ex boyfriend and I mistakenly thought that maybe we could resume our relationship. So half of the poems are forlorn love sick poems lamenting about a relationship that didn't even exist. I laugh aloud at how ridiculous I sound. All I can say is I now know what it's like to be loved by a real man.

Despite the bad poetry I did find one poem I like that has some very vivid imagery. I like the lines that say, "I can already feel you crawling up inside me, sitting on my mind taking it over, then sliding into my heart and chewing it, then spitting it out into my stomach."

I can guess by the lines in the last poem entitled "My Awakening" (I had recently read that book by Kate Chopin in my Women in Literature class-How melodramatic of me!) that I had finally figured out by the end of the semester that this "possible relationship" only existed in my head. The last lines read, "When I reached out to you, And you reacted, coldly, indifferent, I knew." Too funny!

There are also two other poems that are my favorites. "My Uncle's Bakery" and "Where I Lived." I'll share one of these with you now. If you want to read My Uncle's Bakery let me know and I'll post it later.

12/3/92
Where I Lived

I hated that we didn't live in a big house,
like some of my friends.
In a neighborhood with sidewalks
and paper boys on bikes,
like Henry, Beezus and Ramona's friend.

Instead the neighbors all put their junk out in piles
on the streets in front of their houses
or in the "cul du sac"
or simply put, "the circle."
And it stayed there because the trash people never came.

Then as I grew up
I realized
How unimportant sidewalks are
and how great ditches are
for swimming in.
Wondering if a crawfish
might bite me on the toe.

I'd run barefoot on the hot black street
often cutting my feet,
and running home for Mama to wash it
and to pour sangre de chango on it.
I can't remember how many times I did that,

Or when I would run until I was exhausted,
with sweat on my face,
and going home at night
to hear my mother yelling
that I smelled like a dead dog.

By: Loida