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A WritersCorps student writes about her newfound love.
By Rosy Mena
I used to hate poetry, but since going to Chad's WritersCorps group I've started to like it a lot. Almost every day I think of writing a poem. When I walk down the street now I see beautiful things. Once, I noticed these lovely flowers with lines on their petals and I said to myself, "My, those flowers are angry at being tossed around because their veins are showing."
My body is made of flowers
stepped on, shoe marks all over me.
I am the church with singing
bells and trees surrounding me,
a mountain watching planes fly by,
a bird searching for food.
I am a plant seeing my reflection
in a puddle.
Sometimes I notice things that are dirty or ugly; like while I'm waiting for the light to change, I see little rivers, dirty water with paper and sand going down the sewer, and words come into my head: Dirty waters glance through my eyes and into the oceans. One time, while I was about to go to sleep, I thought of a poem. I called it "What Love Is." I've since forgotten it, but I thought it was a great poem.
Chad's class is different because we write about real things we see, or unusual and creative situations. One time he told us to be a drop of rain and to write about our journey through the city of San Francisco. Another time we looked out the windows and imagined we could feel being inside the things we saw.
I am the boxes of trash
waiting to be taken to the dump.
My emotions are students laughing,
a book in the old attic.
My eye is a building being painted.
I feel great about writing poetry because I get to share my ideas. I also get to put my bad feelings aside — the whole day that has crossed me — and focus my good feelings into the poetry. I feel inspired when I write poems because they make me think about so many things; like what if life was as it is described in poems — the earth peaceful and green, the water clean and crystal blue. I also think of love being so wonderful, honest, and simple as it can be in love poems.
Rosy Mena was born Yucatan, Mexico. She is 13 years old and is in the eighth grade at Everett Middle School, where she participates in a WritersCorps class taught by Chad Sweeney. Rosy says she likes to "hang out" in parks with her friends, and that her hobbies are swimming, soccer, and baseball. "I like to be alone," she adds, "because I get to think about what I have done and what I want to do and what my mistakes were."
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