Tag Archives: children’s poetry

My Mom’s Frying Pan

My Mom’s Frying Pan

By Aadya Agarwal, grade 8, New Jersey.

They asked my mom, “What inspires you, Ms. Anne?”
Pat came her reply, “It sure is my frying pan.”
Her crisp reply left them confounded.
After all, she clearly left the Sun and the Moon grounded.

My mom was sure of her inspiration.
And this is what she offered as her explanation.

“Frying pan might look like a plain Jane tool.
But look! how, its emptiness itself makes it useful.
It tells me that nothing really belongs to you.
You are just a medium to pass things through.
You must clean yourself of the smallest residue.
So that you are ready to receive something new.”

“Frying pan has taught me to choose to be humble.
Go through and show up after every rough and tumble.
Seasoning through slow and high heating.
Strengthening through scratches and beating.
And not to suffer from any self-pity.
Be assured that you are where you are meant to be.”

Mom further said, “For me, frying pan is an unsung beauty,
That creates complex dishes through its simplicity,
And keeps my family fed by doing its duty.”

By Aadya Agarwal, grade 8, Princeton Day School, Princeton, New Jersey.

A Mother’s Destiny

A Mother’s Destiny

By Anzhi “Angie” Feng, age 9, from Vancouver/Toronto, Canada.

On the day you were born
At that misty cold hour
I saw your pink little toes
And your skin as pale as flour

I cradled you in my arms
As I slowly weep
Your soft dark hair touched my arms
As you fell asleep

From that day on
I watched you grow
From six o’clock to nine
And as you drifted off in bed
I realized the destiny of mine

Years pass in the blink of an eye
You are now seven
Your thick black hair comes to your waist
Just wait till you’re eleven

I cry in bed every night
Each day as you get older
Soon for a present
Instead of a doll
You’ll want a computer

That day comes way too soon
Time to say goodbye
You’re going off into the world
To find your new life

As you drive off into the night
I know that I’ve done well
And all the time we’ve had together
Is just another story to tell

By Anzhi “Angie” Feng, age 9, from Vancouver/Toronto, Canada.

a castle of words

a castle of words

By Kevin Zhang, age 16, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China.

I shall gather your
words into a castle
of shards

and walk (barefoot
into it
like a king

into his final
breath) and
I shall blow life

into them and
watch as they
flutter between

me and you
like dancing
elephants

By Kevin Zhang, age 16, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China. Kevin is a junior at BASIS International School PLH. He is an Honorary Junior Fellow of the John Locke Institute and serves on the PLATO Student Advisory Council. Kevin enjoys boating, collecting rocks, and learning about other cultures.

The Song of Saccidānanda

The Song of Saccidānanda

By Kevin Zhang, age 16, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China.

I sing the song of forever.

I sing the gentle winds
as they brush against the cliff
of endless time.

I sing the tireless birds
as they crowd the windswept plain
of limitless space.

I sing the hushed darkness
as it dreams the Rudra Tandava*
of boundless life.

I sing myself,
I sing the song of Saccidānanda.**

Notes: * Rudra Tandav: A divine dance of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and transformation, with vigorus, brisk movements.

** Saccidānanda: In Hindu philosophy, the direct experience and bliss of absolute, unchanging reality.

By Kevin Zhang, age 16, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China. Kevin is a junior at BASIS International School PLH. He is an Honorary Junior Fellow of the John Locke Institute and serves on the PLATO Student Advisory Council. Kevin enjoys boating, collecting rocks, and learning about other cultures.

“half, whole”

“half, whole”

By Alyson Henderson, age 16, Connecticut.
 
 
i have always been

two halves stitched together
half this, half that,
never wholly me
always half in, half out
not belonging to either
instead, i am two parts,
conflicting, like puzzle pieces
that don’t match,
forced together anyways
not one whole,
just bad stitching
the parts that don’t fit
hide under the paint,
cracked and chipped
not hiding much at all

they like to ask
if i am this half or that half,
but i say and, not or
and maybe they won’t understand
but i am always this half
and that half,
these halves are just me,
whole

By Alyson Henderson, age 16, high school junior, Connecticut. She adds: “I have been reading and writing for as long as I can remember, and it’s through reading and writing that I learned about other people’s cultures and identities as well as my own. My dad is white and American, and my mom is Korean and immigrated when she was young. For a long time, I’ve been exploring my own identity through writing, particularly my identity as a biracial person. I often feel like I have to choose between being Asian and being white, and I can’t identify as both. However, by ignoring either part of my identity, I am ignoring so much of my life. The way I see it, choosing one half of my identity is being dishonest with myself about who I am. My poem, “half, whole” explores the struggle of never feeling fully accepted as either “half” of myself, and how I have accepted that I don’t have to be put in one box and discard parts of myself for others’ comfort.”

Home

Home

By Lina Murat Mariani, age 11, New York. 

As I stand here, looking at this blank sheet of paper
Trying to describe how it felt when I looked back on the plane that day
All I remember is forgetting—
Forgetting home.
That plane was Odysseus’ ship
Sailing to a strange land,
Leaving but fading memories
A puppet in time’s grip.
Looking back and seeing all my life
Ashes for someone else’s dream to be born from
My home was but naked walls,
Perfect for someone’s paintings and trophies
All my life was a few boxes
And everyone says I should look forward to my new home
But why, if everything would be pictures of people that could be here? Windows into my melted life?

I had already moved on before,
And all that were just undone stitches now.
Why did my home had to be a comfy sweater,
One that people could just throw away?
Why was home meaningless as this sheet of paper?
This new home was my grave—
And worse, the grave of my life.
I look around, feeling like a trapped bug in the full-wall windowed room.
At least Odysseus had iron and blood to fight for his home.
All I had was my swift pen
My empty words
And this blank, meaningless sheet of paper.

—Lina Murat Mariani, age 11, from New York. Currently, she is in Brazil with her family.

Lina explains her poem, “Usually, poems are not read for the reasons they were written. Sometimes, they’re read because of the poet who writes them, but normally, it’s about more than that. Poems are read because the right poem doesn’t just paint a profound or beautiful picture. They paint you. They paint your whole existence, the doubts that consume you like a wildfire, or the hopes that lift your chin up. It’s that tangled mess of red strings and emotions that makes up your life. The right poem echoes your every thought, your every action, the treasure trove of who you are. 

“My reason to write this poem, which I call Home, may be selfish, or childish. It is because three months ago, I watched, helpless and silent, as we got onto that plane to move here, to Brazil. It’s because I have seen everything disappear in the blink of an eye, behind mountains and oceans. It’s because I long for that feeling of being in the U.S., instead of Brazil, with my friends, my teachers, my family, before it was all broken… I write about that strange and wonderful feeling of being home, like a warm blanket that hides fear, sadness, and anything else, because I know I am where I belong, and that can’t change. Until it did. And, more than all, I wrote this poem because I resent that all I can do to go back is write some words on an otherwise blank paper, and those words are just as easily ripped as the paper that binds them. I write because I am bound to this land, as words are to paper, and all I can do is watch as destiny writes my story, my cry swallowed and lost on that horrible day when I saw my entire life being packed up and dragged away.”

Love in Farsi

Love in Farsi

By Madeleine Kashkooli, age 17, California.

Love in Farsi is nazar
The amulet on the bracelet my aunt gave to me
To protect against the evil eye

Love in Farsi is taarof
The offerings of the host
And the appreciation of the guest
Taarof is steaming ghormeh sabzi, crispy tahdig, and sweet nan-e nokhodchi
It is my relatives making sure I never leave without
Seconds or thirds

Love in Farsi is azizam
The word my relatives call me
It means “my dear,” but I don’t need the translation—I understand
Just from the way they say it

Love in Farsi is jan
It has a similar translation to azizam, but it’s used
Right at the end of a name with no pause in between
When I attach jan to someone’s name, I’m saying:
You and my love for you
Are bound together, one and the same
Inseparable

—Madeleine Kashkooli, 17, high school senior, California.

Madeleine adds: “I wrote this poem in honor of my Persian family. I wanted to capture the beauty of my Persian heritage through different aspects of the culture, such as its language, food, and customs. In particular, I sought to explore how some Farsi words have direct equivalents in English while others require more explanation.”

Being Split

Being Split
By Preston Young, age 10, New York.

Being Split by Preston Young, age 10, New York

Illustration by Preston Young, 10, New York.

Being split,
Korean and Taiwanese,
I can’t process two different cultures,
It’s hard for me.

On Korean New Year,
I bow to elders and eat Duk Bok Ki (rice cakes).
On Chinese New Year,
I get red envelopes and eat dim sum with herbal tea.
I call my Korean grandparents Halmoni and Haraboji;
Ah ma, I call to my grandma who is Taiwanese.

The Taiwanese flag has red, white and blue.
The South Korean flag has those colors too.
The American flag has them too, oooh!

Being split,
Korean and Taiwanese,
Sometimes people don’t understand me.
When my friends talk about their one culture,
I want one of my other cultures to be unseen.

I try to tell my friends over and over;
I scream and I shout and whisper over their shoulder.
They never understand when I say,
 I am both Korean and Taiwanese!
They look confused and annoyed like fleas.

Sometimes I wonder if being Korean and Taiwanese is right for me.
I sit there and think until I can finally see,
I am special with being multicultural,
Being Korean, Taiwanese, and American,
Can all fit in my soul.

Being split,
Korean, Taiwanese, and American is hard.
But the three cultures,
Are forever in my heart!

By Preston Young, age 10, New York. Preston adds: “My mom is Korean and my dad is Taiwanese. I was born in the USA. I speak English but I am learning how to write, read and speak Korean because my friends at school can speak fluently, and I want to be able to communicate with them. My dream is to become an author and entertain kids. I was inspired to write this poem because when I am in school people always assume that I am full Korean or full Taiwanese. Sometimes people think I’m Chinese but I always correct them. I wanted to express how I feel and what that makes me feel like. I made a collage out of construction paper and some magazine clippings with markers to show my feelings about being split in three different cultures.”

A Friend That Never Was

A Friend That Never Was

By maggie d., Washington.

Except for Erica and I
The playground was empty
And our laughter could be
Heard miles away
“Not it! Not it! You are it!”
She yelled
Beginning a game of tag

Seconds later
A white car arrived to
Pick her up
The driver was someone
I never saw before
“No matter,” I whispered
With a shrug
Resting my mind on
Tomorrow’s joy

But the next day’s gladness
Did not show
Angrily she blurted
“My Mom said you are a monkey
And I do not play with
Monkey girls!”

A bucketful of tears
Streamed down my cheeks
As I stared into an
Unfamiliar face at the
End of a fence
Making me wince
When she wrapped my hand
Around her light peach
Fingers and asked
“Will you be my friend?”

—maggie d., African American poet and educator, Washington.

Eons of Thought

Eons of Thought
By Manvi Gupta, recent high school graduate, M. P., India

In the cosmos, who determines the designs?
Who creates the stars, and who draws the line?
Am I the actor in a predestined play,
Or am I the narrator who holds the quill, forming the best story ever told in a way?

Can a single drop of rain question the ocean’s mighty
Or does it become one with the sea and lose its identity?
Am I the architect of fate,
Or in this riddle of existence are we all the same?

What is a fallen tree to the deafening silence of the forest with no ear?
Is my existence only validated when heard loud and clear?
If I am hidden in the darkness, does the sun brightly shine?
Is the universe but a reflection, of my consciousness divine?

Does the dart of time travel straight, or can it arch or sway?
If tomorrow mutters a secret, what would today say?
Is the present, past and future nothing but the illusion of my mind,
Or are they the stepping stones to the actuality we bind?

Can we discover the fringe of the universe, the origin of space?
Is there a creator, a composer, in this celestial embrace?
Or is it but a Möbius strip, a limitless twist,
In the loom of existence, does beginning or end exist?

In this universe, am I a free thinker,
Is my mind the sole philosopher,
Or is it but a fragment of a lone troubled lad?
In this shore of existence, we are but a grain of sand.

—Manvi Gupta, just graduated from high school, Madhya Pradesh, India. She adds: “I’m someone who is passionate about building ideas from the ground up and constantly learning, with a deep love for creative writing.”