Our bravest contributors have shared with us some of their more cringeworthy efforts from way back. The Scary Bush should not be reviewed while in the process of drinking liquids, and the reader assumes all risk.
The Poet
Juliet Cook (high school, collaboration with teacher)
My Grandfather's Visits
Meg Pokrass (age 12, presumably hungry)
No, not mountains and pure blue lakes!
What I enjoy are potato pancakes!
I'm not interested in sunsets and waterfalls--
just order some borscht and the plump matzoh balls!
Who wants all this talking?
What? You want kisses?
All I desire are potato knishes!
What good is a visit without planning to dine?
Pity your grandfather he's seventy-nine!
Hands of Time
Lauren India Henley (age 15)
Untitled
Nathan Moore (ca. 1995; we'll have what he's having)
Beware of women with empty refrigerators
Beth Coyote (mixed media: pen and muddy paw print on paper)
Untitled
Julene Tripp Weaver (1983)
I am only here now
yesterday was built just in time
but now its gone.
The weight rolls off my shoulders
crashing to the clouds in the sky.
I am here now doing what it is I am here to do.
I have the experience of balancing time
but first it needs its needle to be thread.
I sit inside me looking out
I try so hard to always see where I really am.
I darn't go back through the pinhole
to be imbedded in some permanent seam.
I cannot write bullshit, it's all bullshit
It all deposits itself then walks away
great ideas are introduced
but a second later they move on
I know I can write yet something
causes a crash,
I need to know before I give it all up
Its so much easier to quit.
God Bless the Child
Paul Nelson (poetry slam phase)
Slash the City
Leo Briones (college freshman, channeling Bukowski)
Untitled
Chenelle Milford (collaboration with teacher)
Untitled
Nancy Ibsen (might be recent; we didn't ask)
Untitled
Christine Hamm (maybe call it Angry Birds?)
Tears of Blood
Kelly Boyker (middle school, editorial example)
