Emily Akosa: Burn Out

Life On Earth

Sprawling branches of flaying mahogany bark
Damp, furry mosses on stout stumps
Earth’s pressure on distorted trunk
Twisting and spiralling into delicate forks of evergreen leaves
In crisp air, the branches dance and twirl

Sturdy sticks that will wear
Leaves that will rip and tear
Slowly, as it ages
Its glory disappears

Its bark no longer a proud colour
It’s gleaming leaves no more
And plentiful sturdy branches littered on forest floor
The dewdrops on the trunk will dry
No longer dancing in winds passing by
No flitting birds
No buzzing bees
They’ll have no home
Have no tree
Careful nests bare and broken
Blooming flowers withered
Laying sprawled in the dead of night
Everything hidden

No longer do mosses thrive
No longer standing proud
Its glory disappeared
Crashing to the ground

The tree will slowly start to rot
Decaying on rich dirt
For that is nature’s cycle
That is life on earth

Aphrodite’s Ways

At first, she’s invisible
She sneaks up on you
Until, jutting her foot out
She strikes you, a rude
awakening

So then you’re
tumbling
The moment is out of your hands
And you’re
frantic,
Out of your mind
Mad, deaf, and blinded by the

Darkness of your newly found home
Fumbling and shivering in the cold
unknown
Of this dark hole that you never
asked to be trapped inside
And you’re beside yourself
Until a pair of arms
embrace

You know those arms
You know that scent
And suddenly
Everything is okay

again.

Survival of the Strongest

Curing into a ball of anxiety
As they taunt you to tears
Tattooing every doubt onto your skin

You have to fit the mould
Square peg in a round hole
You try to sand your corners down
Become curved
Like them

Eventially, you drive yourself crazy
Dragging the sandpaper back and forth, back and forth
Until finally
You’re circular

But then you realise
That through all the shaping
You’ve sanded yourself down to nothing

You’ve broken every mirror
Burned every picture
Because that part of you is the truth you refuse to hear
And after the endless torture
You let go

As you look down into the rough, harsh waves
You see a flicker of yourself in the glint of the water
And you’re a ghost
Pale, sad
Lost

And you know you don’t want to

Because you deserve to fight
You deserve to smile that broken smile
And you wear it with pride

Because you
You are stronger than this
You are stronger than all of them combined
And you don’t have to fit the hole
But you are still around peg

All this time you’ve been a slain entity
Undead and walking

But today
You begin to fight

And as the sheen of your armour glints in your eyes
You see that you’re a square peg again
All corners and straight lines
And so beautifully you

And in that moment
You’re so glad you didn’t jump

Because you deserve the life you were given
So step down from the rocks
Step up

and live.

Reflection

This poetry anthology has been a journey. During this unit, our class has worked with many different styles of poetry, experimented with language and formatting, and essentially discovered the styles of poetry that work best for us. I particularly enjoyed writing the descriptive nature poems and the figurative language poems, so much so that I decided to polish them, and make them poems I was proud to show to my classmates.

Working on my poems made me feel like I was a professional writer! It was so nice to look at the first draft and to slowly change it into something that sounded so much nicer and looked professional, by using different, more evocative language. I used my computer’s theasaurus constantly, always looking for words that were a better fit to the poem, and it really helped to create a much clearer image in my head.

I really enjoy reading my polished poems, and I’m very proud of my work. I feel very accomplished when I compare the first draft of a poem to the final one.

I really like the changes I made to the 1st stanza of my slam poem. I feel that that stanza now has a clearer image, and I much prefer it to the 1st draft.

For instance, compare: “They will drag you down” with “Curling into a ball of anxiety”. The second line has clearer images and emotions, and you can really picture the stressed expression and the curling into a ball.

Another instance is with my figurative language poem’s title. At first it was “Unlucky Victim”, which gives no clue as to what the poem is about. I then changed it to “Aphrodite’s Ways” because Aphrodite is the greek goddess of love, which gives you a better insight as to what the poem was about.

The last instance is with my descriptive nature poem, “Life On Earth”. Compare this last stanza:

“No longer are the mosses
No longer proud and tall
The tree has disappeared
As if it wasn’t there at all”

to this one:

“The tree will slowly start to rot
Decaying on rich dirt
For that is nature’s cycle
That is life on earth”

The second example may not rhyme, but there is a lot more imagery, and the words flow better when you speak them.

Look at the difference between these two drafts in terms of language and flow. I made sure to use more imagery and strong, powerful words in the draft to the right. I also changed the method of death: from hanging to jumping off a cliff. I did this because I wanted to describe the person’s reflection: pale, sad, and lost, to make the stanza more serious and emotional.

When revising, most of the time you make changes that are good for the poem. But sometimes you make bad changes, using words that don’t quite fit with the poem, or an adjective that isn’t quite as strong.

I was able to decipher if a change was good or bad by reading through the whole poem each time I made a change, and comparing to the previous draft. If I saw a stronger image in my head, I chose that version. I also checked for the flow and rhythm, to see if there were any improvements or limitations to the music of the words.

I have learnt that during the writing process, you have to maintain patience, and a critical eye for language and form. I learnt how to properly use imagery and evocative language. I learnt how to balance rhyme and non-rhyme, and where to fit it in.

Overall, I learnt that poetry is an art-form that takes a lot of time. When I read through my first drafts, I took into account that my work was rushed when I did it. I really saw the difference between texts when I took the time to pay attention to the language and form of the poem.

This anthology and unit have been a journey, and I have learnt a lot.

Draft Poems

Disappearing Tree — A Descriptive Nature Poem

“CuTter” — A Shape Poem

“Dreams” — A Found Poem

Illustrations For “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carol

“What Are You Doing?” — A Nothing/Everything Poem

“Step Down” — A Slam Poem

Green Line Poetry — “What For” by Garret Hongo

Stanza #6

He’d hand me a scarred lunchpail,
let me unlace the hightop G.I. boots,
call him the new name I’d invented
that day in school, write it for him
on his newspaper. He’d rub my face
with hands that felt like gravel roads,
tell me to move, go play, and then he’d
walk to the laundry sink to srub,
rinse the dirt of his long day
“from a face brown and grained as koa wood” ← GREEN LINE
“his exhaustion tainting the cool water” ← MY EXTRA LINE

“Unlucky Victim” — A Figurative Language Poem