“Duncan MacDonell,” by Tait Rains, student, grade 11

I loved my house in Mexico.

I could be there

and let the thoughts in my mind

just drive

a   w   a   y   ,

like putting a bottle in the ocean

and watching it float 

farther

and father away from your ship

until finally you couldn’t see it anymore.

I missed my wife and girls

while I was away.

The more I saw my wife,

the more I fell in love with her.

Why were we divorced

if we were still in love?

Maybe she could tell you.

Oh those polo fields,

how I love to just go for a match.

If I do say so myself,

I was pretty impressive.

Like crabgrass in the lawn,

I eventually dominated 

those games.

How ‘bout them cocktails?

Never was I able to get myself to stop.

Only my 

d

e

a

t

h

could do that.

“Allan Frank Bednar” by Savanna Stanley, student, grade 11

Out in Minnesota

the winter brought

cold, desolate thoughts.

The farm cried for attention

to those seven children.

Korean War 1950 brought 

out the man in me.

My hands grew numb on

the frontline; the cows

begging to be nourished.

Beautiful teacher.

The definition of children:

seven members of the tribe.

The theory of practical experience

for those young boys.

Train a child in the way he should go . . . .

Warm, sunny beaches, far

west as can be.

He used to say, “People are too busy to work.”

Cracked one callus over another.

Cement poured down the back.

Day one saw hot hands and faintness,

later felt the presence of an angel.

In seven days the earth was made.

In seven more days, I bowed my head.

There is no distance on this earth

as far away as yesterday.

"Renee Radding" by Lauren Radding, student, grade 11

I was a hair stylist, 

a cake decorator,

but overall I was a mother, 

the mother of three young children.

I had a husband who was a dentist

and I lived in a small town named Ojai.

I felt a bump,

in fact it was a lump,

a lump of cancer.

The doctors told me that I was 

diagnosed with breast cancer.

The cancer spread throughout my body,

like butter spreads on bread.

I began to feel weak,

as the hair started leaving my head.

I didn’t like to live as if my life was done.

In the time they gave me,

I made sure to have the most fun.

I want the best,

for the ones I love most dear. 

Please don’t cry.

For I will always be near.

"Rich Johnson" by Jeffrey Johnson

Jeff's book on Japanese poetics

Ishmael
they called me Ishmael
in the roadside shops,
no truck stops,
in those days

along the two laners
spotted with towns
from east Wisconsin
to Chicago and beyond

i drove through weather
that kept even the best
off the roads
hunkered and huddled indoors

pink sky twisters,
freezing rain,
sideways blizzards,
mistakes were buried six feet under

on that Spanish doubloon
he wagered and nailed to the mast,
i cast my die with all my might
my bid in the gamble of industry

i mounted the crow’s nest
green eyes sharp and peeled
on the horizon
for the prize

through dustbowl wasteland
a generation of best minds,
abandoned in railway cars
begging for sardine tins and a smoke

i pushed on
driving and driven
for what i do not know
and hell, who lives to tell

fearing the whip
sharing a bunk
breathing in desperation
and out desolation

i scratched out
not a living,
but a life
from those roadsides

littered with the broken glass
and dreams
of a hobo generation
that like me lived and died in heroic anonymity