Poetry Slam
The Langley chapter of NEHS hosts an annual Poetry Slam to celebrate our love for poetry with fellow members as well as school faculty and administration. The Poetry Slam is a memorable tradition within the honor society, and it is a wonderful opportunity to share any work with friends and fellow honor society members. Despite the challenges faced due to the pandemic, Langley NEHS hosted a virtual Poetry Slam, where several students and faculty members shared both famous and original works of poetry.
 |  |  |  |
|---|
ORIGINAL WORKS
Mirrors
By: Jennifer Wu
------------------
Mirror mirror on the wall,
Who’s that there that stands so tall,
Thoughts buried deep in her mind,
Hidden from others they struggle to find,
A sense of humanity,
When she seems so full of vanity,
But how is she supposed to know,
That beauty lies deeper than just a perfect photo.
The world tells one story,
But makes another mandatory,
“Looks aren’t everything” they say,
But it seems only pretty people get what they want at the end of the day,
She knows she isn’t perfect,
She’s not scared to admit it,
Because when she looks in the mirror,
Imperfections stare back at her.
She doesn’t show her weakness,
On the outside, embracing her uniqueness,
But on the inside she mourns,
the bruised, the broken, and the burned.
“Her heart is full of thorns” they say,
She only cares that she looks some type of way,
They call her “basic,” “disgusting,” and “annoying as hell,”
When she’s really just trying to find herself.
Their words cut deep,
So much they make her weak,
Her friends whisper behind her back,
Betrayal and hate launches its vicious attack.
Mirror mirror on the wall,
Everything she does makes her fall,
Why can she never do it right,
How much longer can she fight.
We craft this perfect image,
Only to tear people down when they reach it,
Only to wrestle them to the ground,
And bury them with words until they drown.
They drown from hatred,
When they become what we created.
It is never enough.
We are vicious,
We live in a real world but create personas that are fictitious.
Let us stop for a moment.
​
No more mirror on the wall,
But mirrors we carry with us all,
An idea deep in our hearts,
That each of us is beautiful just the way we are.
Lost Souls
---------------
A lost soul can do anything because it is lost
It has no direction
So it can take any direction
It can become light, art, and laughter
Or it can become dark, murderous, and tearful
Either way
I think a lost soul is beautiful
A.P
Girl
---------------
Start being a girl
why do you talk like that
girls shouldn't say those things.
Start being a girl
why are you speaking up
You are supposed to say what we tell you to.
Start being a girl
why do you dress like that
skirts and high heels would look better on you.
Start being a girl
why do you look so fat
lose weight, we like skinny more.
Start being a girl
why do you show so much skin
cover up you’re asking for it.
Start being a girl
why do you act so bold
sits back down and be quiet.
Start being a girl
stop speaking up.
Start being a girl
stop fighting.
Start being a girl
Stop.
stop telling me what a girl is
stop saying I can't fight
stop telling me my body isn’t perfect
stop complaining that I'm not what you call
“a girl”
because I say start talking and stand up
bare your fangs
go down fighting
go down a savage
go down
a
Girl.
When Sunlight Finds Me.
by David Song
----------------
Like hymns (once used to call down rain)
you hid your thoughts in silken lies
and now you beg for one more chance.
But I remember that serein walk-
the promises you made.
The ponchos, you said, were
to keep us dry, and
your mango-red aegis?
To shield me from Helios's scorching glare.
But since then I've learned it was the storm you hid,
that had whipped the wind around us.
ORANGE
-------------
This poem has got pips,
It's about an orange
And I forgot to remove
The pips before I wrote it.
​
Don't read it aloud.
If you do you will feel
Particles of pip
Between your teeth.
Try to enjoy it for
It's juicy flesh,
For its leathery skin
And bright colour.
Chew the verses carefully,
And I will bring a saucer
Where you can spit the pips
That interrupt the poem's flow.
Mirror, Mirror
By: Catherine Zavela
------------------
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who is the prettiest of them all?
Is it me or is it them?
I need to know, I’m falling apart
Mirror, mirror quite contrary
Pretty doesn’t make you merry.
The lies you tell
Are so deceptive.
Mirror, mirror, so unfair
I don’t think you even care.
I look to you for validation
But all you give me is pain and frustration.
I know I’m falling apart again
But I wanna live to see the day when
Beauty doesn’t matter now.
I’m sick of the mirror on the wall
Because we’re all the prettiest of them all.
The Obsession of a Barbarous Mind
-------------
Broken ideas claw their way to the surface
Sharp
cold,
Shunky,
Bloodied thoughts burn with obsession
B U R N
Stitch your mouth together
Don’t say a word
Paper’s Origin
By: Rachel Shin
----------------
I am from paper,
from quills to pencil smudges.
I am from the tired books from the back shelf.
(Dark, lonely, it has never been removed.)
I am from the parchment of old,
the letters flying away,
and the destination neatly intact.
I'm from inspiration and creativeness,
the ideas that flow easily.
I'm from the songs the birds know by heart,
never resting, yet never dull.
From penmanship to typos
that I inherited from my grandfather,
and how I copy my mother in her bookish desires.
On top of my table is a box
spilling years of memories,
sadness in happiness' delight,
which changes my view by the week.
I am from those hardships-
snapped before I changed-
Inspired before I collapsed.
FAMOUS WORKS
Jabberwocky
By: Lewis Carroll
--------------------
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Choose Something Like a Star
By: Robert Frost
------------------
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud—
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
The Road Not Taken
By: Robert Frost
----------------
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
On the Ning Nang Nong
By: Spike Milligan
-------------
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Let Me Not Forget
By: Rabindranath Tagore
----------------
If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life
then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight
---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
As my days pass in the crowded market of this world
and my hands grow full with the daily profits,
let me ever feel that I have gained nothing
---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting,
when I spread my bed low in the dust,
let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me
---let me not forget a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours.
When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound
and the laughter there is loud,
let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house
---let me not forget for a moment,
let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams
and in my wakeful hours