Sidney+Williamson

__Sidney's Poetry Page __

"//Words written in verse may speak volumes when those spoken do not.//" - Caressia Combs

**//Ode//**

//Ode to a friend// //Friends Stick together// //One until the end, if we didn't have friends,// //who'd pick us up when we were down,// //who'd solve the problem that caused our frown// //who'd be there to sneak out with, and accompaniie us through the laughs that seem to never end// //Without friends we wouldn't be the people we are today// //They're our roots in the ground, so we're never too lost, always found// //Friends don't have to be near, sometimes they're far// // But bonds like friendship tend to stay true // //Here's to you...friend.//

//**I Was Raised By**//

//Who raised me?// //I was raised by her, by him, by them...// //I was raised by a strong black individualized black woman..kinky hair, face always in a book, sweet sense of humor, and no time for men..kind of woman...// //I was raised by a I fell in love with her before she ever knew my name kind of man, a i've been through this and I've been throught that, but my children won't ever go through that....kind of man..// //I was raised by..we're going home...north philly where we'd wait for the ice cream truck to come, and you waited for daddy to hold your hand so you could go meet it...where you came home to mom-mom making you all dinner...to the wait to brush my teeth just to taste that sweet strawberry tang, and show everyone how well i could clean my little baby teeth..// <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">//I was raised by...we're going home....cheltenham...middle of no where...somewhere near chuckie cheese....Mc donald's with grandpa...remember don't tell mommy, mc flurries..m&m's please! Bird's and bee's, can i have that bunny please?...well can we visit them at least..? Ms. Selma, grandma say's hi, would you like to be my best friend?// <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">//I was raised...by aunts and uncle's..not where the blood flow's, but smiles forever glow. The family you love, but can't explain where they're from, but you always know, there house is home. Aunt Norma, Uncle Bo, daddy's friends, he calls them brother's though..That's my family too.// <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">//I was raised by...I beleive I can fly, anyone can touch the sky...R&B...and natural is beauty...// // **My Chosen Poem** //

//Education in our Nation// //is how we create our associations.// //When your bright they might fight, but if your not,// //your out of luck...but really, who gives a fuck?// //They bring us in to try and win appreciation,// //so when our kin, wants to begin,// //they'll have a place to begin **In**.// //So much pain we don't know how to be but angry,// //so let us see what needs to be, so that our children// //are able to be free, of this pain and misery.// //This constant struggle can be our rebudle,// //for we step to the heartbeats of our granddaughter,// //our grandsons, but if we lose our heartbeats// //there is no stepping to be done.//

// **Artist Statement:** //

What inspires me to write my own poetry? I think it's more of a what inspires me to want to put it out there, I don't really know what inspires me. It's usually something to do with what I'm feline at that point in time. Like I've written poems about the things I wish I had the balls to say to someone I loved, or things I wish I could say to society. I guess it's just a way to vent, to get all the extra stuff your thinking, but would never really think to say, out in a healthy way. At least that's what it is for me.

// **Close Reading Analysis of Three Poems:** //
 * Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child ||||  ||
 * by Darcy Cummings ||
 * One summer afternoon, I learned my body
 * One summer afternoon, I learned my body

like a blind child leaving a walled

school for the first time, stumbling

from cool hallways to a world

dense with scent and sound,

pines roaring in the sudden wind

like a huge chorus of insects.

I felt the damp socket of flowers,

touched weeds riding the crest

of a stony ridge, and the scrubby

ground cover on low hills.

Haystacks began to burn,

smoke rose like sheets of

translucent mica. The thick air

hummed over the stretched wires

of wheat as I lay in the overgrown field

listening to the shrieks of small rabbits

bounding beneath my skin. ||

Close Reading Analysis

In the poem, Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child,the author creates a character, Alice, and he writes the poem as if she was taking a journey. The author's use of comparisons, has an effect that makes the reader think deeper, and go beyond just whats on the page, to look for the deeper meaning, while what the author really means is right there on the page. Simply because Alice, never really goes anywhere, she's just comparing what it's like to explore her body, to a blind child, exploring the world. You might say the author wrote the poem the way he would have spoke it. It stops at the right words though, some could be seen as pauses, others just seem a little random. There wasn't really a rhyme scheme, it just sort of flows along, when you read it. There's about 18 lines, and 4 sentences in all. It's not very long of a poem at all, but it wouldn't be the same if it was any longer.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Trenton, 1944 <span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">By. Darcy Cummings <span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"> <span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">All summer we’ve lived on the garden,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">on canned goods and beans and broken cookies.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Now the tomato plants are eking out

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">their last green globes, and the garden

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">is buried in dry weeds. My mother has put away

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">her oils forever, covered the unfinished

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">clay figures with layers of damp canvas.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Along the edge of the hot day,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">a cool breeze stirs. Come with me,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">she calls, this is a good day to paint

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">kitchen chairs, a good day to weed the garden.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">We are hiding in the hot garage, waiting until

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">the hard edge in her voice fades. We’ve built

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">a town, roads and stick houses in the sandy floor

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">that smells faintly of chickens and sick cats.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">“Look what I’ve found,’ she cries, and slowly we leave

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">the dark stink. She is standing in the garden, holding

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">a glowing eggplant that was hidden in the weeds. It is

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">a sign, she says, too beautiful to eat. Only one, an omen.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">She lifts the eggplant above her huge belly.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">The afternoon light shines around her, in her red hair,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">in the purple fruit. We know she can protect us

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">from the faint buzz of planes and submarines

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">off the New Jersey coast. We are safe because

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">she is in her garden holding this eggplant. See how it glows,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">she says. How beautiful, like love, like a shining

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">magnificent bruise. We laugh uncertainly,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">crowding around her. I touch the purply-black

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">surface and a small hand rises from the center of

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">the egg. She sets it down in a nest of weeds.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">“Sit down,” she says, “We will paint it.”

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">She brings pastels and paint and spills them

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">on the ground. The pastels smudge our damp hands.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">Tomorrow we will paint the chairs, but now,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">she says, we will look at the eggplant, we will

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">paint this sign. It glows as if all the reds

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">and blues and greens of a hundred jars

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">of stewed tomatoes, chili and picalilli,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">her summer labor, are concentrated in one place.

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">She touches us each lightly with her brush,

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">one two three four, then squeezes the first

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">slash of color on her palette, pulling all

<span style="background-color: #f2e2c1; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: medium; text-align: left;">the light of Trenton down on us.

Close Reading Analysis:

This Poem, the person who's telling the story, is addressing the reader, I feel as though it's a woman remembering a happy memory, from when she was younger. I don't really think there's a real form to it. It's just sentences, it's a bit long, but it all flows together really nicely. They talk about the garden and light a lot. The story has a lot of that kind of vocabulary, but I feel like it has a bit of a deeper meaning, and it's about how that brings them light. How that's part of them, and they're a part of it. The poem is really just about 25 sentences, the last two are really long though. I feel like they should be though, they hold a lot of detail and are able to mold a picture in your mind of what's going on. The language is really homey, more of a recollection sort of language. I feel like the author writes it in a sort of romantic way, the words are just a happy, that was a good time, I'm glad we did that, had that time together, sort of tone. The image that really stuck with me from this poem was, the image of a mother with her children in a garden at the end of the summer, the sun going down, and them all happy with paints spread around, and a single eggplant being the center of their joy.

By. Darcy Cummings
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">Dark Room I **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">Here, waiting for images to rise <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">in trays of fixative. Under the dim red light <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">appear angles of sun and shadow, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">the structure of bone and muscle, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">motion of willows. After hours in the garden, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">along the shore, on shabby city streets, trying <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">to fix the faint pulse of blood and unease, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">I come to the dark room again, again, hoping <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">to find a photograph that stuns me, an image <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">that reveals a complete autopsy of language.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">Close Reading Analysis:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #444444; font-family: Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif;">The story above is about someone waiting for their photo's to be developed, so that they can see the pictures they have taken. They talk about making such an effort to