LITR 3731: Creative Writing 2006
Student Poetry Submission
Patty Coleman
I’m
Cool
Miss,
You ain’t even cool!
They don’t pay me to be cool.
Now,
Tuck in your
shirt
Pull up your
pants
Tighten your
belt
Miss,
Let it go, Try to be cool!
My job is to enforce the rules.
So,
Spit out your
gum
Take out your
earring
Button your
shirt
Hey
Miss, You’re getting’ kinda cool!
Maybe you’re just starting to enjoy school!
Let’s
Pull up a chair
Get out your
books
Finish your
work
Whoa
Miss, I’m confused, I don’t understand!
Let’s look at it together.
There
Slow down
Take your time
We’ll do it
again
Hey…
I got it!! Way Cool Miss!!!
I knew you would!
Thanks Miss!!
You’re so
cool
Ice cubes are
jealous
I’m Cool
Revision Account
I
had a hard time with this assignment. I thought it would be easier than it was.
I haven’t written since high school and the whole process was rather
intimidating as I listened to the poems of my classmates. There was depth and
emotion that seemed unobtainable to me. The poem I wrote is not the poem I set
out to write. I envisioned a beautiful poem written to my husband about our four
teenagers. In the end, I wrote about the six hundred teenagers I deal with daily
at work. It was definitely not written to my husband. I made several attempts to
get something to come together but in the end work won out. The poem was born
from carrying a piece of notebook paper for a couple of days and writing down
phrases I must say a million times. I also wrote down a few “insightful”
sentences that I might be able to work with. I was really surprised how well
this worked out for me. Our textbook talks about journaling and writing
exercises but I felt I didn’t have time for that. Those simple exercises
helped me write this poem. I may be rethinking the journaling option in the
future.
|
Once
I had something to work with, the poem put itself together. The words fell into
their own typography and stanzas. I sat down and started working with the notes
I had. I was able to come up with more material for the missing lines of the
poem. The poem is written about the progression of the relationship between a
teacher and his/her students. At first there is no trust and very little
communication. As the year progresses, trust is built, language changes and the
relationship evolves into one of learning and teaching from both directions. The
communication is more relaxed and less demanding from the teacher, and the
student becomes accepting.
This is the first draft of
my poem. As I said, it found its own typography and stanza
arrangement, although, I did struggle with font types on the final
poem. Once
I had the poem on paper, I had to actually let someone read it. My family read
it first. Of course they said it was great. My 15 year old loved that I used one
of her sayings in it. (You're so cool ice cubes are jealous) I also passed it
around at work a little. Everyone liked it there too. No real suggestions or
comments were made.
I e-mailed the poem to Javier and he replied
right away. Thanks,
I got your poem. Then
about a week later he replied again: Personal
Opinion: This
poem brought a smile to my face. There are two different voices in Patty
Coleman’s “I’m Cool”. One of them is a particular student who is not
very fond of strict or uptight teachers. The other voice is the teacher who
seems to be gifted with the patience of one hundred Buddhist monks as she tries
to control the hard-headed and rebellious attitudes of her students. The student
is represented in the opening line of the first three stanzas and all three
lines in the last stanza. We get the teacher’s point of view in the rest of
the poem. The typography indicates that author chose the free form style, and I
applaud the craftsmanship. His
comments put me a little more at ease and I was in a better frame of mind for
the reading. I presented the poem to the class on September 25th, my
birthday. Most
of the comments made about the poem were very positive. They ranged from “I
really like the form of the stanzas”, “Progression of time is great”,
“Voices- really clear Child’s vs. teacher’s” to “such an innovative way to
show this realistic school life. Brilliant and fresh!!” It was also pointed
out that there was a problem with pronoun usage. There were several places where
I needed to put “your” in place of “the” or “some”. I also needed
some “kid lingo” in the third stanza. I replaced “moving towards” with
“gettin’” Other suggested words that I could have used were “getting’
to be” “almost” “you’re kinda” and “kinda”
The biggest problem turned out to be the last
stanza. It did not fall into the same pattern as the rest of the poem. The words
worked great but the typography didn’t. I added a few words and reworked the
typography and I think it works better now.
There was also the suggestion to “Add a
couple more lines about the end of year experience”. I gave this some thought
and tried to come up with something more at the end. The problem I am having
with adding another stanza is this addition may take away from the ice cube
line. This line is their acceptance of the teacher.
The acceptance is what the poem is all about. For some students, that
doesn’t happen until the end of the year while with others it happens much
sooner. So this could very well be that end of year stanza without any changes.
The overall experience of this assignment has
been positive. I am going to make an effort to start journaling to improve my
writing and perhaps broaden my topic scope a little. I cannot say I am looking
forward to sharing again, but the experience was not as bad as I thought it
would be. I received plenty of good advice and constructive criticism about my
writing. I work with special education students so I am not sure this would work
well in that group. There are plenty of good ideas that can be reshaped slightly
to accommodate them on their level. Working with partners is definitely a good
idea that can be utilized.
On first reading, It's actually pretty good. Or should I say "cool"?
You'll hear from me pretty soon.
Javier
