Camp Glenwood Comments and Poems

My first visit to the Camp Glenwood detention center to teach haiku poetry was on 21 March 2002 (I had a second visit on 27 September 2002). After the first visit, one of the staff members sent me the following comments and poems from the students. These are all the comments and poems I received, as typed up by the staff member, with no edits (I believe that person added the capitalization of the first line of each poem, or perhaps that was a result of the autocorrect feature in Microsoft Word; however, in most cases the poems were not originally written that way). See my “Camp Glenwood” haibun.


Comments


“A man who taught us

The joys of

Haiku”


Poems

 

Sitting by a tree

Feeling all alone

All alone

  

No matter

Where I am at

Food smells good

 

Doing time

Clock

Is still ticking

 

I smell the ocean breeze

Allergies are kickin’ in

So I must sneeze

 

Tall trees in rows

Like soldiers

Ready to fly to war

 

A far distance away

And a close site nearby

Shocked me to believe it was right here

 

Every meal

I know what we are having

Right before I step into the dining room.

 

People walking

Big heads

No mind

 

Sunny days

Hot weather

Sweating underneath my sweater

 

A picture

A puzzle put together

Is nothing but the broken past

 

The grass

Uncountable

So when is it enough?

 

With the time

I know

That I have to have friends

 

Sunshine and wind

Voices, birds whistling

Leaves crinkling

 

I send a letter

I am still waiting

Worry

Not knowing if it’s going to come back

a good letter.

 

People stink

They don’t know

Old fish

 

No matter

Where I am

Food smells good

 

Voices coming from a different mouth

I don’t know

What they are talking about

 

I feel warm from the sun

Yet the breeze cools me

Dusty table

 

Summer tree

Summer sun

Summer glare


More Poems

On 27 September 2002, on my second visit to Camp Glenwood to teach haiku, Kate Riviera gave me a copy of Broken Silence Poetry, a spiral-bound collection of poems written in the previous school year, during which I was a guest teacher on 21 March 2002. The book included most or all of the preceding poems, attributed to each author by first name only, but also the following additions—all haiku and two five-line poems that may be tanka. I’ve retained one typo (“shinning” should be “shining”) but have omitted author names.


This was not a good day

The yelling started right away

Her lip started to bleed


Being locked away

The Easter Day

Just another day


A guy in and orange shirt

Doing his work


I am on my feet running

Under trees

Not looking for the sun to hit me


The sun shinning bright

On the lonely blue flower

Sputter of lawn mower


April

Relief, happiness

The feeling of freedom


A moment

In the grass

Crisp cool ar


I look up to the sky

A cloud floats by

I see a tear fall out of it


A trail of ants

Moving on the log

They are free


Under a blue bowl

Trees

And weird shapes


The happiness from my face

Turns around in disgrace


I smell the grass in the ground

I taste the trees around me

I touch the wood; it is not that hot

Whistle birds on top of the trees

I see the sun in the sky


If time were to turn

The other way

Would it be enough?


I smell fresh air

Green grass everywhere


The taste is bitter

But it is good

For your health


Wind in her hair

Running

Her tail wagging


Warmness and freshness

I sit in the roughness

Of a woody bench


I hear the train

Will it come

It is gone


Crackles in the leaves

Silence in the air


When I walk in the garden

It is green with red roses

I remember the smell of my girl, Joanna


It is silver

Deadly

Fast

Dark

The end of your life

 


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