Great Poetry Reading
April 28 marks national Great Poetry Reading Day, and the English Aggie is providing you with poems by undergraduate students to properly celebrate.
National Great Poetry Reading Day is observed each year on April 28th, a day to commend honorable poems and the poets who wrote them.
To celebrate a few of the College of Liberal Arts’ own poets, we are featuring writing from The English Aggie — the English Department’s undergraduate publication that features students’ written work.
So sit back and enjoy some Great Poetry Reading from our undergraduate writers below!
Experiences
by Haley Walker
Adoring new things.
The experiences.
The ones that make me whole even if just for a split second.
Even the bad ones.
The ones no one likes to talk about.
The most wild, vivid experiences that I claim as my own,
that I’m convinced are slowly making my eyes just a little bit darker.
Even the ones I can’t write about simply because there are no words for them.
My life is comprised of these individual moments constantly fighting against each other,
trying to break me and fix me all at once,
so much so that I cannot decide which one is worse.
But this is the reason that I am here,
the reason the fabric of my life is textured and vibrant
instead of a lifeless piece of wrapping paper with nothing to wrap inside of it.
I have decided the bad is as equally heavy, equally as valuable as the ecstatic,
because it is both, not one or the other that make my heartbeat, my back and forth.
I would much rather experience the deepest pain if it also means experiencing the deepest joy.
If you cannot have one without the other, I will take both.
I will smile, I will cry, and I will take both.
I will be grateful for the experiences.
Penny Love
by Zoe Sherman
I used to wish for love with pennies in fountains.
I tossed my cents with my senses,
like tiny pieces of myself.
Offering my spare change to God, of the universe,
or the maintenance man who cleaned the scum from the bottom of the fountain,
in return for someone to love.
When pennies didn’t work,
I started using nickels,
then dimes,
then quarters.
Eventually, I realized that I didn’t want the kind of love
that only cost the handfuls of change
fished from between couch cushions.
I deserved Swiss banks worth of love.
King Midas touch kisses.
I wanted the U.S National Debt in love.
I don’t waste my coins on wishes anymore
because I know that you…
whoever, wherever you are…
are priceless.
A Line or Two
by Andrew Ramirez
Lengthily our love should be,
Strength in “we”, that hopes won’t flee
And if winds blew or when they do
On gusts, I’m thrust to write;
A line or two in thought of you
And if it were, that words fall short,
Then let them sail t’wards soulless port
For ships are that, deprived of crew
And still I write;
A line or two in thought of you
Lost adrift, in search of land
You are my beach, you are my sand
And if my-life boat sinks, ‘tis what boats do
Then first I’ll will write;
A line or two in thought of you
Gone to sea, our love is current
Bald and barren, if it weren’t
Oceanic tides sweep forth anew
Flowing with, I write;
A line or two in thought of you
If swept away, if drowned or swallowed
It’s here I say: press down your sorrows
And when they swell, because they do
I’ve written words, but far too few;
A line or two, in thought of you:
Sweep with me, into the sea
Weep with me, for us to be
Set sail, set sail