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More on the subject of high school poetry
When I was in high school, I ended up as editor of the school's annual literary magazine during my Junior and Senior years. I had submitted some poems, and was informed that there was no one running the thing, so if I really wanted my stuff in print, I'd have to either find someone willing to edit it, or do it myself. So I do'ed it.
There were some pretty good pieces submitted by individuals, and I got my brother to do some spot illustrations here and there. I took ruthless advantage of my position to get several of my other works included, of course.
But then there was the vast bulk of the submissions. Form poems turned in by the bushel by English teachers. They would assign haikus, acrostics, and other sorts of strict-form poems to their classes, collect the results, and after grading turn the entire stack over to me. I saw more acrostics in two years than most people (who aren't English teachers) see in a lifetime. Enough senryus (the 5/7/5 syllable form alone is called that, it has to meet other criteria to be a haiku, and trust me, these things almost never rose above the syllable count) to choke a hippo. At least the limericks were sometimes amusing.
Of course, after seeing so many lifelessly thudding form poems, I had to come up with some works that used the form to better effect. One such was a rhyming (three doublets, then two lines out of rhyme) acrostic in Spanish, ESTRELLAS (LL is one letter). I'll try to reproduce it from memory, I'm pretty solid on the first half but hazy on the second (I remember the English, but not all of the Spanish for the second half):
Encendido en el cielo
Solo parace hacerse de hielo
Tiempo para ellas no esta de realidad
Real, como es en el ciudad
Enamorados quien estan
LLorando tiene tan
Angustiado (as those who) viven
Sin estrellas....
Translation:
Burning in the sky
They only seem to be made of ice
Time for them is not of reality
Real/Royal as it is in the city (yes, a translation pun)
Lovers who are
Crying have as much
Anguish as those who live
Without stars....
There were some pretty good pieces submitted by individuals, and I got my brother to do some spot illustrations here and there. I took ruthless advantage of my position to get several of my other works included, of course.
But then there was the vast bulk of the submissions. Form poems turned in by the bushel by English teachers. They would assign haikus, acrostics, and other sorts of strict-form poems to their classes, collect the results, and after grading turn the entire stack over to me. I saw more acrostics in two years than most people (who aren't English teachers) see in a lifetime. Enough senryus (the 5/7/5 syllable form alone is called that, it has to meet other criteria to be a haiku, and trust me, these things almost never rose above the syllable count) to choke a hippo. At least the limericks were sometimes amusing.
Of course, after seeing so many lifelessly thudding form poems, I had to come up with some works that used the form to better effect. One such was a rhyming (three doublets, then two lines out of rhyme) acrostic in Spanish, ESTRELLAS (LL is one letter). I'll try to reproduce it from memory, I'm pretty solid on the first half but hazy on the second (I remember the English, but not all of the Spanish for the second half):
Encendido en el cielo
Solo parace hacerse de hielo
Tiempo para ellas no esta de realidad
Real, como es en el ciudad
Enamorados quien estan
LLorando tiene tan
Angustiado (as those who) viven
Sin estrellas....
Translation:
Burning in the sky
They only seem to be made of ice
Time for them is not of reality
Real/Royal as it is in the city (yes, a translation pun)
Lovers who are
Crying have as much
Anguish as those who live
Without stars....