Year 8 Poetry

In Emerging Worlds across term 2, one of our primary focuses was an inquiry into various poets, poetry styles, forms, and techniques. The students got the opportunity to create their poetry anthology and put into practice their burgeoning poetic skills. Firstly, we want to extend congratulations to the following students for making it into the Victorian Poetry Slam Competition:

• Eva Murphy Ward
• Ellie Fazakerley
• Ella Morgan
• Ida Muhammad
• Cobie Ahmed
• Aoife Panzera
• Chelsea Phillips
• Marley Elisha
• Minatsu Sanuki
• Alicia Tan

We wish them luck for the first heat in early September. However, if you are like our English team and can't wait three more months for some slammin’ poetry, please peruse the beautifully figurative work from our Year 8 cohort below. Because life without poetry would be verse. 

Ode to Books

A free verse poem

Edwina Keating - 8C

You drew me in with your

worlds of paper and

words of promise 

you warped me in your covers

in your safety 

it was easy to discover 

I was 

gone 

the moment 

you took 

my hand 

I needed you 

more than 

I needed my 

world 

Tell me your truth 

I’ll tell you mine 

When you tell me your dreams 

I feel 

alive 

When you whisper 

your secrets 

I yearn 

inside to feel you. 

I no longer rever 

angels for I 

have been them. 

I no longer fear 

demons 

for I have 

seen them 

in you. 

A beginning 

an end 

time passes 

and I am 

none the wiser 

of the tricks 

and plays 

the endless games 

that held me 

here

in your embrace 

but I wouldn’t have

it any 

other 

way 

than yours. 

Call you by 

your name though 

you’ve never thought of 

mine 

I run my fingers 

through your pages 

what secrets do you 

hide? 

If I close my eyes 

will you take it back 

the things you keep 

inside? 

I see you 

when I fall asleep 

I miss you 

when you’re near 

More than anything in the world 

I wish you were really here. 

Scarlett Mitchell 8C

Salvo the Trees

It burnt at the stake, 

Smell flamed wood ‘til opaque, 

Ash Flooded the shore, 

The bush was at war. 

The horizon brooded black, 

The sky of crows back, 

It was said to be serial, 

Within this imposed trivial. 

It chewed at the trees, 

It swallowed the breeze, 

Started with strike, 

There was nothing alike. 

Smoke on the water, 

The sky got smaller, 

The spark of fire, 

It destroyed the entire. 

The bush was the Achilles heel, 

Silence collapses. 

Only the sound of wheels.