Badgerblog

Today, on one of the hottest days of the year, Central Texas students are filling the halls of their elementary, middle, and high schools for the first time since that glorious day in May when summer began. The buses are up and running, crossing guards are in place, textbooks are cracking open, and students are sporting the pinnacle of first-day fashion. In commemoration of the big day, Badgerdog is highlighting our friends at Hillcrest Elementary School in Del Valle Independent School District. Some of the students at Hillcrest spent three weeks this summer with Badgerdog Instructor Cara Zimmer writing experimental love poems, describing themselves through metaphor, and writing outlandish stories. We hope you enjoy this showcase of their talents!

A Plastic Shopping Bag in Love with a Sunflower

My Lovely Sunflower,

I love the way you sway when the wind is whistling.

Your bright yellow petals make me want to sing to you, even though you might be embarrassed in front of your sunflower friends.

You are my plastic shopping bag, even though you’re not a plastic shopping bag—I love you just the way you are.

Whenever it rains, I will cover you and keep you as dry as the desert. I’ll be wet as the ocean.

I never want to let people pick you from the ground.

I want to make you my Wonder Woman, and I want to be your Superman.

Out of every single sunflower in the world, you’re the only one I want.

There is an infinity of other things I could say—

You are my lovely. tall giraffe.

Sariyah, sixth grade

My I Am Poem

I am a chocolate bar—I have lots of nuts, and I am crunchy.
I am a rotten old chicken wing, and I taste like old, stinky bananas.
I am poison ivy that has spikes and itchy poison.
I am a sandwich that tastes great—I have lettuce, tomato, pickles, and ham.
I am a garbage truck—I pick up trash and leave it where it needs to be.

Fabian, fifth grade

Airplane Love

My Dear Lovely Boots,

I love the way
you move those soles,

and when you move
your legs, I stare at them.

I love the cotton
inside you,

and your shine
makes me want to kiss you.

You are my life, boots.

Love,
Airplane

Elizabeth, fifth grade

A Letter from a Trashcan to Mexico

My Dear Mexico,

I wish you would
be with me.

Every time you go,
I feel lonely.

When you come back,
I feel full of joy.

You’re my Skittle—
I wish I could just eat you.

Love,
Trashcan

Emily, fifth grade

A Love Poem from a Bookshelf to the Earth

My Dear Earth,

I love the way people swim in you.
I love your dolphins.
I love the pretzels in your malls.
I wish I could hug you.
My Dear Love, you’re better than all the planets.

Joanna, fifth grade

My Barbie Girl

Lovely Barbie,

I love your beautiful hair—
it’s so sparkly, like my screen.
I’ll type you every night and day.
I’ll put on romantic music for you, like D.C. Reto.
I’ll take pictures of you.
I like your body.
Want to go out?

Sincerely,
Computer

Fernando, fifth grade

To My Glowing Basketball, from a Pair of Air Jordans

I love the way you bounce up and down.
I like when you make hoops.
I’ll give you my autograph.
I love the way you feel bumpy.
I love your black lines because they’re dark,
but I’m scared of the dark—
I’m lucky you glow at night.

Sincerely,
Air Jordans

Areli, fifth grade

I Am a Ghost

I am a ghost.
I smell like garbage.
I feel like fuzz and slime when you touch me.
I look like a fuzzy cloud.
I sound like someone walking—you will scream all through the house.
I taste like a rotten egg.

Jasmine, sixth grade

A T.V. and a Backpack in Love

My Dear Backpack,

I love you because
you can carry me
around inside you.

And you shake yourself so good.

You make me hyper
the way you move that pocket—

That’s why you make me turn on,
and I love you so much.

Here’s my address—but you don’t know
how to walk, and I don’t
either.

The thing is: I’m too
heavy for you. I weigh fifty-two pounds.

And that’s all baby.

Andres, sixth grade

The Loving One-Hundred-Dollar Bill to the Goldfish Who Can’t Understand What’s Happening

To My Love,

I love the way you move your tail from left to right.
Your scales shine under the ocean light.
I wish I could go underwater with you, but I would get sticky.
I could make you rich, but you don’t want to be with me.
I could buy you anything you want—an aquarium! Anything! For you, my love, I would.

Chuy, fifth grade

Fun Things

I’m a yellow lion that eats carne al pastor.
I’m a brown door that’s open all the time.
I’m a red car that runs very fast.
I’m a lucky fish that lives in the ocean and swims and sleeps all day.

Luis, fifth grade

My Name

In English, my name means joyful. It doesn’t mean anything in Spanish. It’s pink, and it’s like the number 100. My name is Maria—it was my great-grandmother’s name. She was silly. At school, almost everybody has my name. I’d like to change my name to Melanie . . . But I still love my name.

Maria, sixth grade

Fluffy Surprise

I am fluffy.
I am tiny.
I am cute.
I have floppy ears.
I am living in a park—
Yup, you got it!
I’m a bunny!

Cristal, fifth grade

Window Love

My Dear Telescope,

I love the way
you look.
People use you
a lot, but they don’t
use me.
I wish I were
in outer space
so you could see
me, and I’d
think of you looking at me.
I can tell
you love me.
When you stare
at me and I stare
at you, all I think
about is you and me
together.
I love you
forever and always.

Karina, sixth grade

Mr. Spaceship

My Plastic DVD,

I love the way
you spin.

You make me wanna
beep, beep, beep.

You are the last piece
of my puzzle.

You’re like a love song
in my system.

Together we can fly
in hyper-speed.

Michael, sixth grade

President Chuy Returns

When I was in California, I was looking around. One day, I saw President Chuy. But then he died. Well, everybody thought he died, but really, he was in Acapulco, resting for a few years with his dog, Austin.

Acapulco smelled like fish because it’s a beach and they sell fish there. In California, it was snowing frozen sneakers and the sneakers and the air smelled good. I heard big footsteps—it was an elephant! It was a pretty color—a purple elephant! I had a dream that President Noel was screaming because his last pair of underwear fell down . . . but then Michael Jackson saved him.

Abrieana, sixth grade

Clock Love

My Dear Butterfly,

You look like a beautiful star
with beautiful antennae.
I like the way you
flap your wings.

I wish you could
be with me always.
I don’t want to lose you
because you are my sweety.

Noel, fifth grade

Daniela Is

I’m a super blue dot. I’m a queen that has slaves. I’m money, and I go from hand to hand. I’m smart because I teach. I’m chocolate ice cream—I go from mouth to mouth. I give people some light in the night—I’m a star. I save people—I’m a super dot. I’m vanilla Daniela. I’m a writer, and I write stories. I’m a diary that keeps secrets. I’m a lion—they won’t mess with me. I’m a monkey—I love bananas.

Daniela, sixth grade

The Boot’s Broken Heart

My Lovely Train,

I love how you move your wheels. I know you don’t like me because I’m tiny, and you’re huge. But I like to sing songs of love to you. I love your shoo shoo shoo shoo sound, Train. I’m going to invite you to the G.O. where you can drink gasoline and eat oil. We are going to get married and have a boy train and a girl boot. (That’s why I invited you to the G.O. Restaurant.) You can ride me to New York and Disney World and Laredo, Texas. I love how you use your superpowers like Spiderman. The thing I like the most is that we are a good family, like the song:

F-A-M-I-L-Y, F-A-M-I-L-Y,

Family, family.

When you’re in my heart,

you’re in my family.

Jocelyn, sixth grade

This week’s Badgerblog selection combines imagery and rhythm to create an ominous effect. With each phrase and line of the poem, the picture in the reader’s mind expands and darkens, leading us to the final line—one we’ve all heard before but which appears again with new weight, threatening to undo us all. Congratulations to Leyla on a gorgeous poem!

Untitled

Carpet stapled onto a ladder, stapled
onto a roof, like elongated shingles,

A rainbow of windows casting a shadow,
like a painting,
like a painting,like stained glass in weathering
windowpanes, on top of the invisible house,
held up by a shipmast, a cement block,
a bedpost and a slithery wooden foot,
held up by a painted fist

on top of a wooden sign: “Those who do not
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Leyla, twelfth grade, Badgerdog Creative Writing Summer Camp

To see a photo of Paradise Now! (The Salvage) by Matthew Day Jackson from the Blanton Museum of Art, which inspired this poem, click here.

This week’s featured writer brings us an inspiring poem both rich and spare in its language and execution. As you move through the stanzas, notice how light and dark, day and night dissolve, as you’re simultaneously invited to fly from earth to sky and back again. Congratulations to Shivani on a delicate and wondrous poem perfect for a summer evening.

Dark to Light

lost in the suffocating darkness
lost in thought

you see black
you see white
you see beautiful designs
unfold

black as dark as coal
silver and gold
white as bright as the sun

black

large black
large black sky
large black painting

at night

the sky is dark
children get scared
because all they
see is black

at night when we
look up we
see nothing
then
we see stars

white sparkling
wonders light
the soulless sky

we see the stars
we see hope

hope fills the sky
when we look
close
when we look
deep
we see pictures
unfold

they line up to
form
pictures
in the night sky
created by twinkling
wonders

under the bright
night sky we
see the choking
darkness.

Shivani, ninth grade, Badgerdog Creative Writing Summer Camp

If you’ve been to the Blanton Museum of Art lately, you may remember Max Weber’s piece New York at Night, a cubist rendering of the Big Apple during those delicate moments when the sky dims and the city lights flicker on. This same painting captured the imagination of one of our Badgerdog writers during a summer camp field trip last month.

Congratulations to Sahar! In this poem, she’s brought to life both the bustle of the city and the dynamism of Weber’s 1915 canvas. What a beautiful marriage of art and poetry!

New York at Night

A never-ending maze.
Streetlights.
Skyline.
Upside, downside, diagonal, horizontal—
You can see the same image.
You can see the streets, and the buildings,
But hidden in the chaos is calm.
Each skyscraper, each simple park
It is three-dimensional yet it appears two-dimensional.
Alleys, stairwells, passageways, paint crackling,
Then the light bright of NYC.
Beige.
____Green.
________Blue.
____________Gray.
________________Red.
____________________Yellow.
The sounds echo off every corner,
Every detail neatly integrated into modern chaos.
Every angle tells a different story.
Shining stars glisten.
All the little shops and stalls—
The randomness of it all.
The true spirit of New York at night
Is focused yet frenzy.

Sahar, eighth grade, Badgerdog Creative Writing Summer Camp

Ah, life. No one said it would be easy. But rather than belabor the point, let’s turn the discussion over to our Badgerdog writers, two of whom offer sound advice for getting through, well, existence. Congratulations to Daisy and Dominic from Ojeda Middle School for their insight and inspiration on one particularly trying topic.

Life

Never let life take hold.
Make everything into a piece of art without lines.
Don’t see what people want you to see, but what you want to.
Be grateful for what you have.
Don’t live life in poverty without something to fall back on.
Listen to your heart and live a peaceful life within yourself.
Make a happy place with trees and things that keep peace.
Don’t be overpowered with hatred.
Don’t cry over things that bring no use, that bring no pain but sorrow.
Let life make a wonderful change in nature and things that surround you.
Don’t live in fear.
Try to find things you’ve never imagined.
Be at peace with the world, even if it hurts.
Don’t play games with Destiny.
Don’t think about the things you do when you fall in love,
Just the things you say when you care.

Daisy, seventh grade, Ojeda Middle School

Life

Life should be enjoyed. You should live it to its fullest and take risks. When life knocks you down, just keep trying.

In life, you and everyone around you will encounter obstacles. If you keep trying, you will overcome them.

Your life should be fluid and graceful. It should flow like a river. It has currents and even whirlpools. Drama ends up as a waterfall. Excitement is a whirlpool of happiness.

You should enjoy life. It does not last as long as you think. You can overcome an obstacle. There is always a way. Don’t give up on life, ever.

Dominic, seventh grade, Ojeda Middle School

For our Spring Holiday Poem Card Contest and in honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, we asked our 170 Badgerdog writers to wax poetic about the women they call Mom. We received more than 120 poems celebrating the strength, wisdom, and beauty of mothers who sing songs and wash flip flops, mothers with skin so soft and eyes that shine in the sun, mothers who work too hard, and one mother, who, if she were an animal would be a cat. We selected the three poems that moved us most with their artistry, insight, and vision. You can find the first two of these in preceding posts.

Today, we are pleased to announce the contest winner—Siearra at Del Valle Middle School, whose poem “Tiger Mama,” hits on one mother’s toughness, verve, bite, and beauty. Siearra’s poem will be distributed in restaurants across the city, so if you’re taking mom to brunch on Sunday, you may find this beautiful poem—an ode to mothers everywhere—tucked inside your check.

Tiger Mama

She’s like a grasshopper,
hopping in the streets of Hynoon,
eating the guts of insects,
saying, “Clean your room, Siearra!”
She’s like Air Jordans—fresh and tight.
She’s tough as a tiger biker,
always yelling, “Yield!” in the strangest places, like the grocery store.
She’s the Himalayas—courageous and extraordinary, the mountain of wisdom.
She’s always asking me, “How much do you love me, McShorty?”
She loves the taste of dark chocolate.
She’s like poison ivy—contagious in so many ways.

Siearra, seventh grade, Del Valle Middle School

Original artwork by Sarah Meraz.

For our Spring Holiday Poem Card Contest and in honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday, we asked our 170 Badgerdog writers to wax poetic about the women they call Mom. We received more than 120 poems celebrating the strength, wisdom, and beauty of mothers who sing songs and wash flip flops, mothers with skin so soft and eyes that shine in the sun, mothers who work too hard, and one mother, who, if she were an animal would be a cat. We’ve selected the three poems that moved us most with their artistry, insight, and vision, and we’ll be publishing these on the Badgerblog over the next few days. On Wednesday, we’ll announce the winning poem, which will also be distributed in restaurants across the city, so if you’re taking mom to brunch on Sunday, you may find a beautiful piece of poetry—an ode to mothers—tucked inside your check.

Today we present one of our finalists, a poem from Luna at Del Valle Middle School. We were stunned by its depiction of a mother who seems to both obey the rules but defy expectations; she seems to even teeter on invincibility. Congratulations, Luna!

Converse Mum

She’s like a fly,
Always running up and down Dearbonne Drive,
Eating the leftover raw meat.
You better love her.
She loves wearing Converse.
She’s cool, like hot rocks.
She always stops at stop signs.
She’s pretty as a lovely river falling over smooth pebbles.
The way she talks makes me think she was born in the Country of Sarcasm.
Do you love her yet?
She loves the ripe, watery taste of watermelon.
She is a redwood tree.

Luna, seventh grade, Del Valle Middle School

The sun sailing unhindered through the blue, cloudless sky; parking lots and car hoods so hot you could fry an egg on them; afternoon retreats to Barton Springs. Summer is definitely coming in Austin, or at least some days it sort of seems so. As the city heats up, we become more observant of the things we wear and the things we carry out the door with us every day. It makes us judge the value of those things, determining whether they’re worth the extra burden in the oppressive heat. In this week’s selection for Badgerblog, author Mariah shows us that these decisions are about more than personal comfort. They’re about the “overriding” need to “feel cluttered.” Congratulations, Mariah, on writing such a potent poem!

What I Carry

The things I carry are important
but replaceable. So there is no need
to carry anything at all,
but the need to feel cluttered is overriding.
I carry a chongo,
my ring, ID, a rubber foot, a mirror, and some perfume.
I carry the chongo in case the feeling of hair
on my neck on a hot day becomes too annoying.
I carry a ring on my middle finger.
I’ve carried it so long that when I take it off
you can see the white outline left behind.
I carry a school ID because
it’s a sin to leave it at home on your bed.
I carry a rubber foot I bought
from a package that cost me 60 cents at Wal-Mart,
and I carry it because I forget to remove it from my things.
I carry a mirror in case of a runaway eyelash,
but otherwise its useless. Lastly, I carry
perfume because you must always smell inviting.
Notice that a cell phone isn’t on my list
even though I’m a teenager.

Mariah, eleventh grade, Del Valle High School

The writing process, in some ways, allows us to bend time, to stretch and remake it, to weave in and out, to revisit and forget. When we commit an event to the page, we make it timeless. When we roll verbs together and mind the rhythms of our words we can spark a sense of motion, of acceleration. But this week’s Badgerdog selection feels almost like a time-out. It holds us in the suspension of a moment, in quiet pause and thought. Congratulations to Elsie from Del Valle Middle School on this stunning prose piece, which communicates powerfully through mood and image.

Time Can’t Tell

I’d step on the wooden fence to look at the same perspective I saw every day. I’d look down and see the kids playing in the dirt. Funny to say, I never got a splinter.

I’d get bored standing there. I’d go and leave my socks on and wet my toes in the puddle after it rained and just sit there, waiting until my mom would call me in to eat with the family.

I’d go where the bikes were sitting. I’d feel the plastic—blue and textured—and I’d look at the glass door and see the smudges and smears of fingerprints. I’d feel relaxed, like time couldn’t stop me from staying or leaving the balcony. I could hear the lawnmowers start up, and I could smell the freshly cut grass. I’d see the red ball we used to play handball and remember its bouncy sound.

Elsie, Del Valle Middle School

Photo courtesy of Lanie Anderson.

Fairy tales are always liberating to a young mind—the colorful, distant lands and clear principles of valor and courage open the imagination to magical, alternative universes. But as time and age force our attention toward “real world” concerns, we lose sight of these fantastical possibilities. This week’s selection, a poem by KayCee from Del Valle High School, reminds us that the world of fairy tales is not merely a place of fiction, but that the people and places we encounter every day are just as full of wonder and romance as the imaginary kingdoms where our young imaginations so often sought escape. Congratulations KayCee for composing such an insightful poem!

Princess

Every girl’s dream is to be a princess,
A princess of a distant country,
Wishing for her prince to come rescue her.

It’s the same in high school.
Everyone wants to be the most popular,
Wants the handsome quarterback boyfriend.

But the truth is:
Being popular is not that important.
(Don’t look at me like I’m stupid!)

Not all guys are quarterbacks,
And you really are the popular princess
In the country of your friends.

KayCee, ninth grade, Del Valle High School