Photo by curlywurlygurly
There is a photo of me fishing with my grandpa,
standing by the water, throwing the rod,
cows eating grass behind us.
There is a photo of me talking to him,
surrounded by my family, smiling,
pictures of past generations on the wall.
There is a photo of me visiting him in the hospital.
He wanted to be in his own bed.
There is not a photo of me saying goodbye to him,
Grandpa lying on a bed,
eyes closed,
trying to sing an old song.
By Ramiro, 12th grade
_MG_4614 “Fire-Escape” (Photo credit: Michael Menard)
How to submit an entry
Bunte Leichtigkeit (Photo credit: Ela2007)
Someone is trying to explain and spread feelings out.
Red, blue, angry.
Black, red, happy.
Red, pink.
I see my dreams every time I wake up.
The sketches are still there in the morning.
They remind me of somebody I know.
It seems as if it was all real and golden.
Is it so?
It must be something haunting me from the past.
By Allenique, 3rd grade
Little Window-detail2 (Photo credit: rosedeniz)
In the dark-ish night, deep in the
city, the sunset made blue-ish, orange reflections
in the calm river. The boats were heading
to the nearby dock. The tree in the
field with the ruffled shadow became clear.
The smoke from the burning bridge fell to peace.
By Michelle Smith, 5th grade
Calligram by Guillaume Apollinaire. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When a poet stares at time, everything stops.
When a poet loves, he freezes,
and his heart bursts open like an over-ripe banana.
When a poet thinks, he is so happy he will melt of happiness.
When a poet is angry, he will go crazy.
When a poet is sad, he will cry to death.
When a poet travels to a new land, he gets lost.
When a poet imagines, he sees himself as an astronaut
and then becomes one.
When a poet writes, he believes nothing is wrong
because he is at his best.
By Saadat Makki, 3rd grade
Airplanes Light Trails (Photo credit: JcOlivera.com)
Leaving land of lone star
of heat, humidity, and horses
on a huge white bird
over open ocean
in night’s ebony embrace
Out of the ominous
an amazing archipelago
the pearl of perfection
the majesty of mountains
home
By Samuel Samson-Williams, 7th grade
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Summer is coming. Have you made your plans? There are still spaces available in the Writers in the Schools (WITS) Program.
Who: Middle and High school students
What: Summer writing workshops
Where: Bellaire High School
When: June 11-29, 9 am -12 noon
Why: Because you have a story to tell
How: Click here to sign up today
In the Creative Writing Camp, you explore different literary genres (poetry, fiction, essay, drama) with friends. You learn about craft and revision in one-on-one conferences with published authors. Through multi-disciplinary projects combining text and art (such as painting, sculpture, or music), you will also find new ways to address a particular audience. At the end of the three weeks, you will publish your best work in an anthology and celebrate!
Click here to find out more from a Rice News story. This summer program is sponsored by Writers in the Schools (WITS) and Rice University’s School Literacy and Culture Project.
Space is very limited. Click here to enroll.
El mar inclinando en los ojos de mi mamá
Los ojos de mi mamá son azul como el agua.
Las olas son como la felicidad de ella.
La corriente es como su enojo.
Las rocas son la soledad.
(Translation)
My mother’s eyes are blue like the water.
The waves are her joy.
The current is her anger.
And the rocks are her solitude.
by Liliana, 2nd grade
Photo by BN catchesthelight via Flickr
Yellow bulldozer. (Photo credit: MJ/TR (´･ω･))
I am yellow
a man who’s driving a bulldozer
an earthquake hitting the hard ground on earth
a crane with a ball that weighs 1 million tons
about to crash history
a light feeling coming from myself
I am blue
calm waves crashing
a quiet person walking
sprinkling rain falling to the ground
peaceful and quiet
I am red
lava coming from a volcano
the amber of a fire
the mad feeling of angriness
By Owen, 2nd grade
I’ve always been interested in music. One of my earliest memories was getting my first drum set. I was seven. My parents got it at a garage set, and as soon as I saw it, I was ready to start. I taught myself just by listening to music and then trying to play what I heard. When I was about 12, I started playing at school. I had to audition to play the drums. When I started, it was a lot more structured. Instead of teaching myself, I had others teaching me. I found out that I had developed some bad habits, but I still think the time I spent teaching myself was worthwhile. Over the next few years I kept improving. When I was 16, I joined a jazz band. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done so far. It’s a completely different style of playing, and it’s a lot harder. The only teacher I had was another kid. I love it. We play at the school and at competitions. I think you’re born into drumming. Only about 8% of the world has the brain capability to drum well. You have to be good at multi-tasking and being steady. In drumming the terminology is based on sound. For example, you might play a flamadiddle followed by a ratamacue. If you don’t have a good drummer, you can’t have a good band. I want music to continue to be a part of my life.
By Haden, 11th grade
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When we get there
the horses in their stalls
paw the dirt.
I cough in the dust.
We grab the feed,
and they whinny at me
when I pass by.
I get a brush; very tenderly
I scrape off the dirt.
They are as dusty and steamy
as a train when it chugs
down the track.
When we feed the mares,
their babies skip after us.
They run so fast
they fall.
by Isabella, 3rd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Gabriel Arnold, a 4th grade student at Parker Elementary in Houston.
This poem is featured as part of the 2012 A Poem A Day campaign, a National Poetry Month celebration by Writers in the Schools (WITS) that features a different poem by a WITS student every day during April. Click here to learn more.
I block
the feelings that beat
against my shell.
I have beauty inside me
longing to be shown
to the world.
I am stiff with
the emotions that swirl
in my body.
I watch the butterflies
dance around me
with flaps of pride.
When it rains, I show
my shiny shell to the
lady called the flower.
She drops a warm petal on me
to show that we are no
different in soul.
For what would life be
without soul?
It doesn’t matter
what you have within,
only the soul matters.
As the sun’s rays hammer
into me, my beauty
faintly shows.
I am a rock.
by Ioana, 3rd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Thomas Girardet, a 4th grade student at Parker Elementary in Houston.
This poem is featured as part of the 2012 A Poem A Day campaign, a National Poetry Month celebration by Writers in the Schools (WITS) that features a different poem by a WITS student every day during April. Click here to learn more.
I wish I was a super hero so I could fly
to see the earth,
to fight evil
so I could help the world.
Maybe I could be rewarded with something
if I fight the most dangerous evil villain.
I could be defender of my city,
and the most famous hero in the world
and everyone would know my name!
by Edwin, 2nd grade
Click the link (above) to listen to the poem read on KPFT radio by Ella Dale, a 2nd grade student at Parker Elementary in Houston.
This poem is featured as part of the 2012 A Poem A Day campaign, a National Poetry Month celebration by Writers in the Schools (WITS) that features a different poem by a WITS student every day during April. Click here to learn more.
Former WITS writer Stacy Parker Le Melle, who now lives and works in Harlem, will visit the San Jacinto College (SJC) South Campus for two important events on April 26. Before teaching with WITS, Le Melle served for five years in the Clinton White House as an intern in George Stephanopoulos’s office and as an assistant to Paul Begala. She also worked as a presidential advance person, planning presidential visits abroad to places such as Abuja, Ho Chi Minh City, Okinawa, New Delhi, Ankara, Cologne, Merida, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, and more.
Le Melle’s memoir Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House (Ecco/HarperCollins) was released to critical acclaim in 2010. Recent projects include creating The Katrina Experience: an Oral History Project and contributing to Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (McSweeney’s).
Le Melle will present two lectures on Thursday, April 26 at 10:15 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the San Jacinto College South Campus in the Proscenium Theatre inside the Marie Spence Flickinger Fine Arts Center. The South Campus is located at 13735 Beamer Road in Houston.
Join us in welcoming back to Houston Stacy Parker Le Melle!
Cool Brains! Inprint Readings for Young People invites you to an afternoon of mystery and fun with Trenton Lee Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of The Mysterious Benedict Societyseries. He comes to Houston to read from his newest book in the series,The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, which, according to a starred Booklist review, “gives readers a reason to fall in love with the series all over again…[with] adventures, danger, cleverness, dry wit, and good-hearted characters at the center of the action. . . . Two hundred years after Dickens’ birth, this orphan story plays notes in a familiar key but creates its own memorable tune.”
