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Poetry Through Practice Portfolio

ENG 10022
14021518

Lyric
Skinless

A cold, wet bead

runs down my chin.
The smell of rain
hitting cold concrete
reverberates in my nostrils.
A chilled hand opens
a conch
a compact mirror
to reveal my face.

This face looks foreign.

It does not show
My humor, wit, fears,
love.
How easy to judge a shell.
I am a person
with a mind
that moves like
a pebble in a current.
I am not my skin.

Lyric Commentary

This poem is the first poem I have ever written. I have revised it, but the ideas and words
are mostly the same as my original. For this poem I was given two objects: a compact mirror and
the smell of rain hitting concrete. I decided to use the concept of a compact mirror to reflect my
feelings about personal appearance and being judged by that alone. I think there is so much more
to a person than the physical characteristics that they inherited.
In this poem I wanted there to be a feeling of disconnect between the speaker and their
physical body. In the first stanza I emphasized that feeling by saying A chilled hand followed
by my face. In the second stanza I revived the feeling by saying This face. I then contrasted
the feeling of disconnect with the physical appearance by being possessive of the inner traits and
saying My humor. I also used the sense I was given about rain on concrete to make water a
theme in the poem. I used water images heavily in the first stanza and then used another image of
water near the end of the poem. The theme of water also connects to the shells in the first and
second stanza. The compact mirror is a conch (a shell) and later the body of a person is a shell. I
drew a similarity between the mirror and the body to again emphasize my point that the body just
houses who you really are.

Love Lyric
I loved you from the first moment I saw you.
So fragile, so innocent
Like a newborn cub.
One look was enough.

For you, not the same.

You used me.
I was a means to an end.

Youd give me hope,

Like maybe you could love me.
The looks you would give me,
Like I was your sun,
But dashed away in the next second,
Too fast for me to shine.

Sometimes you would get violent.

Attack me without warning,
Like I was just one of your toys.

I was happy to be used

You would appreciate what I could give to you.

We had an understanding.

I only hope that one day

You can love me like I did
The first day I saw you.

Love Lyric Commentary

I struggled with coming up with a concept for my love poem. This poem was originally
about my cat and was meant to be ironic. It was supposed to sound like an abusive relationship
until the reader got to the end to discover it was about a cat. I then thought better of it and
removed the punchline.
Though I wrote this poem about an abusive relationship, I have never been in one myself,
so I find it hard to personally connect with this poem. However, I like the desperate and toxic
feeling it portrays. I wanted the poem to have moments of joy that almost make up for the
moments of sadness and rejection. My intention was for each stanza to be like a moment of a real
abusive relationship. Despite the negativity of the poem, it still has glimmers of hope, like I
would think someone in a real abusive relationship might have. The poem reflects the internal
struggle of someone in that kind of a situation over the course of the relationship, though the
speaker doesnt leave their partner.

Elegy
The taste of salt lingers on my upper lip.
They ask if we want his face covered
as they carry him out.
No.
I kiss his cheek one last time.

With my mother and brother beside me

I stand. Strangers offer their condolences.
Weddings and funerals.
I have felt my pain, now swirling into numbness.
Outside, the sun shines.
White gold and sparkling.
How happy the birds must be.

It was not an easy death.

It was perpetual pain and sadness.
Cancer shipped away at his body and mind
until nothing was left.
They say hearing is the last to go.
The last words to leave my lips that morning will remain
etched in my mind forever.

We went to
sand dunes, geysers, canyons.
We collected experiences.
He recorded it all,
He knew this was coming.

But the sun shines,

the birds sing,
people move,
and salt still lingers on my upper lip.
Elegy Commentary
For this poem, I decided to write about my father. He passed away six years ago from
cancer. I wrote about the most distinct memories of his death and how I remember those
moments. Elegies usually give some kind of description of how the person died or the condition
of their body, so I included the stanza about how cancer chipped away at him. Elegies also
usually contain natural elements like earth and sea, so I included the stanza about the places we
visited. The poem is entirely the truth. It was a beautiful autumn day on the day of his funeral.
My family also did a lot of travelling and my father would videotape what we saw and what we
did. He was aware that the cancer would eventually beat him so I he wanted to leave behind
records of our memories. I also mentioned the birds specifically because my dad loved watching
the birds. He would put birdfeeders in our backyard and teach my brother and me the different
species of birds. It was important to me that this poem was accurate but still portrayed my
emotions.

Refrain
A subtle smile that caused the world
to wonder. Simple, engaging.
A curve to baffle the most
perceptive brain.
What secret does she hold?

Envisioned by a masterful mind,

stroke by stroke, she came alive.
A swirl of mystery inscribed on the lips
of one woman.
What secret does she hold?

Is she laughing at us?

While we stare and make meaning,
she smiles, knowing what we will never see.
Nothing can be revealed.
There is no secret.

Refrain Commentary

This poem was inspired by a trip to Paris I made right before writing this poem. While in
Paris I saw the Mona Lisa, and I decided she would be an interesting subject to write a poem
about. When I began writing my poem, I decided I did not want an extensive refrain. The
mystery surrounding Mona Lisas smile inspired me to make the refrain a question. I began the
poem by focusing on describing her mouth and the mystery surrounding it. The Mona Lisa is a
piece of art that has been analyzed extensively, but no real answer has ever been found as to why
she is smiling; the world will probably never find out why she is smiling. I wanted to give the
poem a cynical twist since the probability of finding a reason for her smile is so low. For the first
line of the last stanza I used a question to indicate a change in tone in the poem. The feeling of
the last stanza turns from doubt to hopelessness. I changed the refrain at the end of the poem to
be an answer to the question that was the refrain. I had previously drawn attention to the
intelligence of those who studied her, which makes the final line, There is no secret, much
more disappointing.

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Voice
Kathleen

A critical eye
that sees the world
in many colors.
Blue calm, violet mystery,
orange surprise, red anger.

A soft ear
that hears
the troubles, anguish,
joys, and revelations.

A quiet mouth
that speaks
in undertones.

A beating heart
that feels the weight
of the colors, sounds, words.
It knows life, death,
the miracle of ordinary existence,

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the time that passes with each

thump

Voice Commentary
I wrote this poem as a reflection of how I see my own voice. I am someone who mostly
observes the things going on around me. I am not a talker, and when I do talk, I choose my words
carefully. Even though I do not vocally interact with things going on around me as often as most
people, I still have a perspective and feelings. I have experiences which make me see and
understand things in my own unique way.
I wanted to break up the poem into different senses. My goal with breaking up the senses
was to simplify my voice to allow the reader to gradually understand my perspective. Sight,
sound, and physical voice are all things that most people can relate to. I made the length of each
stanza get shorter and shorter up until the beating heart, to give the last stanza more emphasis.
My beating heart and my reflections on sight, sound, and physical voice that follow give a deeper
look into my perspective and voice.
I chose to end the poem with thump because I wanted to end on something that would
make an impact on the senses of the reader. A thump is a heartbeat which would continue on,
meaning the continuation of life for the speaker of the poem. I intentionally, did not put a period
after thump because periods come at the end of things. I wanted my heartbeat to continue, so I
left off the period.