My Poem

1992

LIZ HOWARD

This is our welfare half

a duplex with mint green

siding shrugged between

rail yard and main street

logging trucks and trains

shake the foundation so

much I mistake them for god

forever it is winter mom

dissolves into mentholated

smoke and Coffee-Mate at

the kitchen table painting

orcas and nor’easters in burnt

umber and verdigris until

the fuel we burn for heat

dissipates I find

my brother sitting

blue-tinged in his crib

mucus freezing to his

tiny upper lip come

spring he gets up on two

feet to press his left hand

onto her canvas leaves his

mark in the sky just over

where a suggestion

of light snuck out

through the rippled

storm cloud a copper

coin shining onto where

the waters calm at a

distance from the

anonymous

shore

Curricular Competency Reflection

I chose this poem to recite because I wanted a poem that conveyed some hidden meaning, in this poem there are subtleties that suggest that the writer was in a state of poverty when she had the experience behind the poem. Preparing to recite this poem was easiest when reciting it to other people, this was because it was the easiest to learn what to improve on when speaking my poem. I also prepared to recite this poem by reading it out loud and walking around so it stuck in my brain more. This was the best to me to memorize the parts of the poem I did.

Core Compentency Reflection

Examples of where I communicate clearly and purposefully can be seen in…

When I practiced speaking before hand so that when I presented the poem to the class my words were clear and I was collected.

In discussions and conversations, I help to build and extend understanding by…

When practicing and reciting my poem, I was able to help people improve upon speaking their poem and they helped me improve mine. This was beneficial and refining my speaking of my poem so that it sounded the best.

An example of where I built upon someone else’s ideas is…

When I was practicing reciting my poem, people helped my fine tune my poem and I built on their ideas to make my final recitation as good as possible.