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AL's Poems
The Approaching Storm-- A poem I wrote for a creative writing class. It was an exercise in extended metaphor, and I've always been passionate about the hunger problem our world faces. (Learn more about what you can do to help stop hunger on my links page.) Believe-- I wrote this at camp one summer after participating in a discussion group in which someone said that he didn't believe in God, but he wanted to. Five Months-- Written in February 2002, reflecting on the months that have passed since September 11. Ideals-- This one was inspired by David Weiner's translation of the siddur and started as a response to the violence in Israel during the summer of 2001, but it turned into something else--probably one of the most honest poems I've written in a long time. The Kikar at Camp Ramah-- They planted a tree in the middle of the big field at camp and it was just a really dumb idea. It died that winter. Land of the Free-- One of the poems I wrote during the week after September 11. If you're really patriotic, you might be offended by this one. The Mystery of 529 Genevieve Avenue-- A random remembrance of some of my first piano lessons. Native Soul-- I'm obsessed with American Indian cultures, so this is kind of about that. Painted Paradise-- An experiment trying to write a sestina. I think it worked, but you be the judge. People of the Revolution-- I wrote this in memory of Terry Kath, one of the original members of the rock group Chicago. He wrote a lot of their early songs and had a distinctive vocal and guitar style. He died in January 1978 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the story is that he was cleaning his gun when he accidentally shot himself. If you're familiar with Chicago's early music and the music they put out now, you know what a difference there is. The early music was so passionate about political events and social injustice, and it rocked. Then Terry died and the 80's and those sappy ballads came along and the passion was gone. Every once in a while you can hear it in a song that never made it to the radio, but it's not like it used to be. Anyway, in the liner notes of their second album (that has hits like "Make Me Smile," "25 or 6 to 4" and "Colour My World") there is a quote, which is in the actual poem, that inspired me to write this in memory of the person who, at least in my opinion, was the strength behind the passion. I'm still not happy with the last line of this one, and it's gone through about 23 1/2 mutations, so if you have any suggestions, you can e-mail me. Poems from Eastern Europe-- Several of the poems I wrote about my journey through Eastern Europe. I kept a notebook of the sights I saw as I visited the places and these poems include those images as well as some of my interpretations of them. Some were written in Eastern Europe, some in Israel, and some at home. To learn more about my journey, check out my journal from Eastern Europe and Israel. The Prophet in Burger King-- I've never really been able to come up with a good title for this one, and you'll see it has a different title on the actual page (if you like either one better, you can e-mail me). Anyway, during the summers I work at a camp and on days off, unless you have a car, you pretty much spend the whole day in the tiny town of Eagle River, Wisconsin -- and there's not a whole day's worth of stuff to do there. So, one day it was raining and my boyfriend and I ended up sitting in Burger King for over two hours playing cards, and this is one of the people we saw there. Reflections on Musical Theater and Reincarnation-- I wrote this several months after seeing Titanic the musical, buying the soundtrack, and becoming completely obsessed with it. By the way, the musical is nothing like the movie, so if you didn't like the movie, please don't dismiss it because of that. You can read about the musical on my obsessions page. The River of Eternity-- One of my first real poems, this one was chosen to be published in Richard Marx's CD Flesh and Bone. Since I have always liked his music, you can imagine how surprised and excited I was. I don't really like this poem as much as some of the others, but it is published and the others aren't, so it deserves it's place here too. Sunday Afternoon Daydreaming-- This is another assignment from a creative writing class in which I had to write a sestina, a poem in which each stanza has six lines and the lines have to end with the same six words in every stanza. The words I chose are rainbow, hairbrush, clarinet, rock, enlightenment, and window. Read it to figure out how those words end up fitting together. It ends up getting a little strange, but I had fun writing it.
To Jupiter-- A series of poems which deals with my fascination with the Greek and Roman gods and their relation to my life. This is actually a series in progress, so new poems will be added periodically and not all the completed ones are up there right now because I haven't typed them all yet! Tomorrow's World-- This is the first poem I wrote after September 11, about a radio clip I heard that afternoon. Uncle-- About my uncle who is a Sioux Indian.|
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