The 2018-2019 school year has come to an end but we would like to take this opportunity to give you a peek at the great talent housed at YES Prep Public Schools.
Below you will find poems nominated by English Language Arts teachers from our Eisenhower, North Central and Southeast campuses.
Added bonus, Misti Morgan, YES Prep’s English Content Director, also nominated AP Literature teacher Lauren Berry from YES Prep Northbrook High School.
The Art of You
Daisy Crisostomo – 11th grade, YES Prep North Central
Spin the wheel of color, inspiration
drawing your every breath. Delicacy
bleeding through the canvas, while fixation
distorts the eye of one to jealousy.
Your frame holds the beauty incomparable
to those the mind imagines. Hues of gold
that reflect your talent, unshakeable
to the world. Oh, what beauty you hold.
Flowers, color of snow, wait to bloom.
Clear blue waters that cleanse the heart and soul
and yet, manage to drown us in gloom.
Our emotions drawn out, leaving us whole.
Our meaning to life found behind your frame.
Leaving an essence never to be tamed
Changes
Ruben Carbajal – 11th Grade, YES Prep North Central
A world of innovation and future.
As technology consumes our new lives
Destroying the past and wrecking creatures
While leaving behind people who lack drive.
As nature persists through death and rebirth
The colors alter from lively green to
Sober yellow that overthrows the earth.
That quickly happened before you even knew.
Those that were once close have now disappeared.
For It was only a matter of time
And now it has come true what you have feared
There was no stopping this simple deadly crime
All these changes put one in confusion
Only understanding my own reflection
You Close Your Eyes
Emily Popoca – 11th Grade, YES Prep Southeast
You close your eyes
And see the stars
Lights shining through
Through those eyes
That once as bright as stars
Held the ocean’s endless abyss
Through your eyes
That once saw dreams
You see it there
You see the guy who’s standing there
Blanco
Ambar Rojas – 10th Grade, YES Prep Southeast
No se me viene nada
a la mente.
Cada vez que me
ponen a escribir mi
mente se cierra
por completo.
Es como si alguien viniera y
de repente me cerrara las puertas para
Pensar.
Que es lo que escribimos (question mark)
Sera suficiente esto (question mark)
Le gustaria a la maestra (question mark)
Mi creatividad en esta clase esta al cero
Sera por eso que no me concentro (question mark)
Doubt
Caityln Bishop – 10th Grade, YES Prep Eisenhower
His name is Doubt.
He manipulates the brain
He latches himself onto the host,
and makes him believe the worst.
Makes him think of failure.
His name is Fear.
He hides in the corner.
He comes when his victim is vulnerable,
and takes control of the mind.
Makes him hate the unchangeable.
His name is Shame.
He talks to him every day.
He forms when he is foolish,
and makes him feel stupid.
Makes him scared to move forward.
Doubt, Fear, Shame.
All of the above.
They are all disguised,
by lies from within.
The Battle is hard.
Female Empowerment
Akilah Smith – 10th Grade, YES Prep Eisenhower
We can all have our own crowns
So don’t frown
Something about that brown
Chocolate
Melanated skin
We don’t have to be friends
But each individual success
Is empowerment for the rest
So please don’t stress
When you see someone doing their very best
Let that be a motivation for you to do whatever you have to do to excel
Mother’s support your daughters dreams
Why work against one another when we all
can build as a team
Each and every dream brings some steam
It’s time to focus
And never settle for less queens
But it’s time to spread your own wings
Versions
Lauren Berry – AP Literature Teacher, YES Prep Northbrook High
In my father’s garage, I am born wailing, covered in dust.
I am four, three, two, one. I live under the spiderweb that strings together
the leather photo albums where the versions of my childhood are stuck
under transparencies wrinkled and yellowed, lifted by my unsteady
hand. In my father’s garage I am forced to smile, I am shaking
with joy, I am laughing so hard my eyes close, I am blind
when I smell an orange blossom, blind when I blow out birthday candles, blind
when I kiss my father goodbye on my first day of school. In my father’s garage
I pray in a first holy communion dress, but also a mermaid costume
and I have red hair, I have lost teeth, I love a pony led by a stranger at a fair.
In that garage, I am alone in the photo jigsawed from when I cut my girl-enemies
away from my body. In my father’s garage, I am a white rose corsage resting
on my first lover’s dashboard so its silver pins would not hurt me
but the petals fell nonetheless as he kissed me in that car
parked in my father’s garage. In my father’s garage, I am wet,
I tread water in the neighborhood pool that will be doused with chlorine
when I step out of it and run to my father. In my father’s garage, I am drenched
with rain in my best dress in front of a theater marquee, grinning while my father snaps
the picture. And though it isn’t captured, I remember how he shielded me
from the weather under his coat. We huddled together as he guided me
toward the warmth of his car, the car that used to know the way home.