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Green Apple on Black Plate
--inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe
Sitting on the plate,
the plate dark as the night sky,
apple makes life abundant
Sam Forbes, Middle School
The Steward School
Richmond, VA
Donna Jackson, teacher
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Jim Bill
--a persona poem, inspired by a piece of sculpture
I am Jim Bill.
I caught a ten-pound catfish.
I caught a rainbow fish, swordfish,
a shark, whale, puffer fish,
and a rockfish.
I love the turquoise sea.
I love my gray fishing rod.
I like the sea, royal blue, and the sun
rising.
I love the rainbow and the sky.
I love America.
I love because I live on the earth.
Class poem, kindergarten
The Steward School
Richmond, VA
Kate Strickland, teacher
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Jim Bill
--a persona poem, inspired by a piece of sculpture
I am Jim Bill.
May I come over and fish with you?
We’ll go fishing in the Cowpasture River,
and then we’ll go fishing in
the sea.
I love fishing for salmon, croaker, and
catfish.
If we don’t catch anything, we’ll buy
fish
at the country store.
We’ll go home, clean, cook, and eat our
catch,
and later we’ll have a snack.
Class poem, kindergarten
The Steward School
Richmond, VA
Jennifer Haar, teacher
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Jim Bill
--a persona poem, inspired by a piece of sculpture
I am Jim Bill.
I fish in a pond and also
in the Atlantic Ocean.
I catch a medium-sized tuna.
I’m in a white wooden boat
with decorations
on the sides
and glowing stars
on the bottom.
There’s someone standing
on the boat and fishing.
The sun is shining.
We catch a lot of fish.
--Class poem, kindergarten
The Steward School
Richmond, VA
Catherine Hathaway
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If Not, Not
--inspired by
R.B. Kitaj’s If Not, Not
You, building
What have you done? And why so
foreboding?
In the midst of the fire and shadows
You stand unshaken
Your weapon smolders in an ominous cloud
around you
You stand unfazed
Dead bodies are not even the blink of an
eye
Do you not care about despair laid at you
feet?
The black ink spills from your body
But it does not hide you
You do not care to be hidden.
The ink spills
It cannot be erased, the damage is done
The stagnant pool spreads at your feet
over your destruction
Your rubble
It will consume the land, the plague
reaching from field to field
But you stand firm, admiring your work
Your battle is won
You are your king.
Sherwood Elder
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Bandit
--inspired by Dime Piece’s
Step Up
Bandit in the dark of night
One fashion diva taking flight
A cape around that perfect neck
She hums melodies of cash and checks
Look, look! At this fashion vandal
Turning her back on every fashion scandal
Creeping alone, making a plight
Thump thump thump, in the dark of night.
One step higher than the others
Idol to all fashion lovers.
She is the light, when all is dark
In blackness she is the only spark
Hero or criminal, is her design?
We’ll know as soon as she crosses the
line.
Sheila Palmer
Henrico High School, IB Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Life, Just
One
--inspired by Dogs
Playing Poker by C.M. Coolidge
You only get one life
And it is what you make it,
So if you see something you want in life,
You should reach out and take it
They say you can only play the cards you’re dealt
But want happens when I take the deck and deal the cards myself
I could deal myself a straight or maybe a flush
Life would be calm, no need to fight, yell, or fuss
I could help out a friend
Maybe make our hands the same
We could split the pot and share the fame
Hey, life’s not fair we’re just playing the game
Or maybe I’d just get the deck back and let life run its course
And let the cards fall by the true Dealer’s force
Because having too much can change one’s true face
And make them only want to cheat to win the race
Hey, I know it’s not right, but just to be safe
And make my life more stable
I may still keep a few aces under the table
Marquis Massenburg
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Unafraid
--after Henri Rousseau’s The
Sleeping Gypsy
After an unending day, of walking alone I
seek rest in my solitude.
I have so long to go, but I find beauty
in nature- peace and tranquility.
The river moves slowly as the sun beats
down my back so I pause in awe
From what it is.
They ostracize me for walking alone, but
those in nature live this way.
My music and the river move two in one,
but no one seems to understand me
For who I am.
I wish I could strum the strings all
night, but the costal breeze slows my heart beat
And sends me dreaming; I am alone and
unafraid. I understand that nature and I are one.
The sound of the river
soothes me, and in my peace I still am afraid,
Not of those who live, but of those like
me who walk on two legs, but still I must sleep
I have so long to go.
I dreamt of walking in a slight breeze,
strumming my guitar and moving unnoticed, and I
felt no fear as I slept alone because
someone was there. He was a part of nature, beautiful
in his relationship with nature, unlike
those like me. I understand him
For who he is.
Lauren Winston
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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The Death of Socrates
--inspired by
Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates
A thinking man has died
A teacher has died
Self-knowledge has ended
But the beginning of the Socratic Method
has started
All the troubles in his life have ended
He is now free from the shackles of life
and thought
He throws the shackles down
But he points his finger towards Olympus
But before he leaves Man’s world
He asks one last question
Who should I condemn for making me live
through my perilous journey?
Be it the democracy that motivates free
speech?
Be it the hierarchy that that never
happened?
Be it the Olympian Gods that don’t exist?
Or be it Man’s own ego and rational
thinking?
Kevin Desai
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Starry Night
--after Vincent Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
He curses those that keep him
in,
Wavering light knocking,
making an evil din,
It keeps him awake throughout
the days,
And eats at his heart, in the
form of malaise,
His tree, it taunts him,
Waxing, and gnarling its
limbs,
Inside with the sinister moon,
He sees the bane within the
boon,
For although he needs no fire,
He must remain awake, slow to
tire,
For his house glows as if
alight,
And he is trapped inside,
under a starry night.
Jack Van Vleck
Henrico High
School, IB Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla
Biddle, teacher
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Life Cycles
--inspired by Coffin for
Sacred Cat in Egypt
by Egyptians of the Ptolemaic period
Life one, after months of preparation
at the careful hands of a sculptor to
memorialize a pet or symbol to the gods
Life two, I stand in a room in an
Egyptian
Palace looking vacantly at the passing
dynasties
That rule over this kingdom
Life three, I am taken to a dark place
where there is no
Light to follow my new master to the
afterlife but where will I be
Life four, staring black into space I
remember the other lives I have lived
And regretted not remaining in the palace
Life five, I scream I scream for a way
out my boredom goes beyond no bounds
Life six, I do not know how much time has
passed but now only my voice
And mine alone is the only thing left in
a tomb of darkness
Life seven, I began to dread my fate as I
hear hammering at the walls that have sheltered
me
Life eight, I am handed down trader by
trader to people who see me as a decoration and
damage me by making me insignificant a
simple piece of trash
Life nine, at last I am looking out at
life again with people back and wondering what my
life was like, what was my purpose.
Knowing this is my life I look and know that soon
it will be the end
Garrett Roberts
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, Teacher
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Do They Make a Sound?
--after
Mary McCrossan’s Ruins in the
Forest
If ruins collapse in the forest,
and no one is around to hear them
Do they make a sound?
The destruction of a home
The chaos of stone askew
For a home you must rome
To start life anew
What if someone was around
To hear those ruins, tumbling to the
ground?
Does it make much more of a difference
Of the chaos that follows
The disturbance of the other animals for
instance
Or the rearrangement of the hollows
Does is matter if noise is made
When it is all said and done
On the forest floor the ruins are laid
Either way, they gave it a good run.
Devin Jefferson
Henrico High School, IB Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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I Eat Reverse Carrots (What is Your
Sign)
--inspired by Terry Brown’s
Dangle
I woke this morning
Thinking “today will be different”
Staring into the suns I felt like I was
at Tomorrow
The morning twilight set my eyes
To a world of destruction and malice
Where Honesty’s slave was honesty
And limbs were severed from limbs
It felt like it was the future
When it was really a merging of past and
never
The bare empty walls spoke volumes
Whispering horror stories in my ear
Sunlight reached out to me
And told me of her infection
She told me of the connection
Binding the stones and seeds of man to
rot
She told me of the encasement
And how they harnessed beauty
“Forever is now never” she said,
“And never is today”
I could never understand her
And I watched her pale skin bleed
Man raped the goddess
And I watched through the eyes of the
dead
With the entombment of space-time
And our world hanging before us
I knew there would be a sequence in the
stream
This twisted light made things reverse
In silence speak the words
When drained and bled
The soul of mankind rests in the wake
Compromise the solution
To falsify the odds
Trust in my resolution
This life is hanging by a thread
Calvin Woo
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Man Sitting
--after Wayne Thiebaud’s Man
Sitting
Sitting
Seated, softly
Deliberate
My hands are costumed in something that
isn’t mine
And these eyes are vacant
Like there’s glass in between
And this vision is distorted
And this forehead is creasing
Spectator, my vision is
Like a metronome, and I’m watching myself
But I’m not what I used to be
And if I speak I wake up
Because it’s quiet, and this room is
empty
The silence is perfect
And if I move I wake up
And I’m still sitting here
Arasim Kyle
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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The Stone Eater
--after a painting by Terrance Lindall
It squats like a child
naked and knelt,
Hunger
The flames approach from behind the stone
eater
thirsty, towering,
They scorch
A riverbed that once flowed with water
charred and cracked,
Drought
The cuckoo perches on the knee of the
stone eater
dormant, drained,
It stoops
Hands that once moved on the surface of
the clock
steady and silent,
Suspension
The round stones border the stone eater
even, eroded,
They are still
Faces engraved on the stone
wailing and weeping,
Doom
The folk lay at the feet of the stone
eater
fearing, fleeing,
The end
Nikolas Hayes
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Buttons
--after Berlin Abstraction by Marsden Hartley
As I lay on my back looking at the sun
I wonder who else is staring into this
surrounding deep blue.
Could it be the little blonde boy
With the mud stained overalls?
The one who holds his mother’s hand on
the way to church?
What about the sad teenager down the
block
With her larger-than-life eyes and
perpetual frown?
The one who looks like his secret is too
much to hold on
And she wants to let someone inside of
the world she’s trapped herself in?
OR maybe it is the old couple
With the crinkly eyes and staggered
steps?
The ones who slowly cross though the park
each afternoon
At exactly three hours past twelve?
Perhaps it’s you
With your martini glass in hand and not a
thought in your mind?
The one who reads poetry, wears frocks of
black and fancies mood lighting
All to maintain an image you feel you
cannot break?
And it may be that every man in the world
has more to live for than I
But at this moment
As I gaze at the blue abyss illumined by
that giant ball of fire
I feel a contentment that I know may
never grace my body again.
Kerri Murphy
Henrico High School, IB
Program
Richmond, VA
Priscilla Biddle, teacher
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Carolyn
Kreiter-Foronda