Taylor+Valentine

Poetry is... "the best words in the best order" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom." -Robert Frost

My poetry often has a set form to it. All of my poems have either three or four lines per stanza, and each stanza is about something slightly different. I used this form because it keeps me focused on the content instead of how the poem looks on paper. Since I don’t have to worry about the format, I can be more creative and free with the words I use.
 * Personal Statement**

I base most of my poems on the topics and memories that I think about most. In “Sunglasses,” I describe one of my favorite memories: I was in Disney World with my mom and baby brother, when he knocked her sunglasses into a pond. I wanted to keep the poem serious and have audience guessing about the topic throughout. At the end of the poem (Lines 21-23), I attempted to bring out the light nature of the topic and clear up some of the confusion.

In “Misled Painter,” I emphasized an important point “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly (Line 17-18).” This line came from “Failing and Falling” by Jack Gilbert. When I read this line, I really made me think. I don’t necessarily agree with it because certain things are so important that you should only do them well. I found it interesting nonetheless, and decide to form a story around it.

By Taylor Valentine**
 * Ode to the Letter "S"

The curves of your body The way you sound on my tongue The static, subtle spirit in my life

Q, R, S The letter that should have started it all Successful in simple success

Weren’t we always told that good things come in pairs? Or trios, triplets? Series spoken in succession

“Did you get enough to eat? Another helping, perhaps?" Skillful in your satisfaction

Time passes far too slowly If only with hours and days Sans the spinning seconds

Constant apologizes They never truly make it right She’s still so sorry

The letter “S” Always and forever The static, subtle spirit in my life


 * Sunglasses**
 * By Taylor Valentine**

The memory of that day Still rests in my head That hot, sticky heat The calm water below

I still see her standing there With him in her arms Eyes shaded from the sun Like a man in black

I return to the pond Perhaps looking for fish A cry, a yelp As her covers pierce the surface

The memory of that day Still rests in my head The way she laughed To keep him from crying

Maybe his eyes hurt The sun's grin just too strong Or he wanted her all to himself Maybe

Or maybe that’s one of those cute things Those things that babies do That lets you know they’re ready to be put down

By Taylor Valentine**
 * Misled Painter (riffed from “Failing and Falling” by Jack Gilbert)

I look at the painting in your hands And wonder where you went wrong. Was it the blue-green tint of her hair Or her night-like face against the daylight?

Could it be the way she stares With imperfect concern As if lost in some terrible thought?

The painting was supposed to be a joyous one. But I can find no joy, none at all In her suffering.

So this is your choice? To be an artist, a painter To tell your stories through medium Instead of words?

But of course! This is your path And anything worth doing Is worth doing badly.

By Taylor Valentine**
 * Fluttering Eyes

The cars zoom past my window in the night. No other need, but to make it on time. The moon shines across my face far too bright, With dreams of danger and organized crime.

How can I sleep soundly in the darkness When there is another world around me? Love, hate, near, and far, pure aggressiveness Takes back control, but never hears my plea.

How do I close my eyes as the world shakes? As it crumbles slowly and falls apart From others' problems and careless mistakes So much to think about, how will I part?

After living this long and tiring day, For a still, peaceful sleep is what I pray.

**Audre Lorde** Audre Lorde was a woman of many facets. She was a black, Carribean, lesbian woman, who believed in social change and fought for it. Because she had so many pieces to her identity, she could associate herself with many different groups of people. Lorde’s poems explore her identity from many different angles.

In “Who Said It Was Simple?” she discusses her identity as an African American and as a female. Both of these groups had to struggle for equal rights, which is shown in the poem. The poem begins with “There are so many roots to the tree of anger/ that sometimes the branches shatter/ before they bear.”(Lines 1-3) It was very hard to be in her position during the 1960’s and 70’s; she faced a lot of discrimination and anger accumulated because of it. At times, it is easier to let everything out, to let you anger shatter, than it is to only hint at it. Lorde was also very conflicted by the different pieces of her identity. At the end of “Who Said It Was Simple?” she wonders “which me will survive all these liberations.” (Lines 17-18) There were so many movements going on at the time that she probably didn’t know who to side with and how anything would turn out.

In “Song For A Thin Sister,” Lorde speaks to a certain stereotype about black woman. She fears that a friend is losing her identity and “becoming” white because she is growing too thin. “But your new kind of hunger/ makes me chilly/ like danger/ for I see you forever retreating/ shrinking/ into a stranger/ in flight. (Lines 12-18)” While stereotypes aren’t necessarily the right way to characterize individuals, when someone accepts them, they give that person a way to connect to others in that group. Since her friend was not what Lorde had accepted, she was scared and concerned for her.

In “Change,” she considers the idea that she is being held back, and not allowed to change. She “hurls herself at the unfamiliar shore, (lines 6-7)" trying to grow an a person, yet “the waves beat back her rage. (Line 9)” “The girls who live/ at the edge of the calm pool/ where the moon rises/ teach me/ to leave dreams alone. (Lines 12-16)” If you are unable to follow your dreams, it may be easier to not dream at all; it doesn’t hurt as much.

by Audre Lorde**
 * Who Said It Was Simple?

There are so many roots to the tree of anger that sometimes the branches shatter before they bear. Sitting in Nedicks the women rally before they march discussing the problematic girls they hire to make them free. An almost white counterman passes a waiting brother to serve them first and the ladies neither notice nor reject the slighter pleasures of their slavery. But I who am bound by my mirror as well as my bed see causes in color as well as sex

and sit here wondering which me will survive all these liberations.

by Audre Lorde** Either heard or taught as girls we thought that skinny was funny or a little bit silly and feeling a pull toward the large and the colorful I would joke you when you grew too thin. But your new kind of hunger makes me chilly like danger for I see you forever retreating shrinking into a stranger in flight— and growing up black and fat I was so sure that skinny was funny or silly but always white.
 * Song For A Thin Sister

by Audre Lorde**
 * Change

In whose bed did I lie asweat as the first thrush sounded telling myself stories of someone I used to be hurling myself at the unfamiliar shore taunting the rocks' long shadow till the waves beat my rage back to spindrift and my wars came home? The girls who live at the edge of the calm pool where the moon rises teach me to leave dreams alone.