Most of you know that I am a teacher. I have the eye-opening privilege to teach at Lehi High School. My favorite class of all time is Creative Writing. I have the opportunity to get to read poems and stories created by these teenagers, and most of these pieces are prompted by their life experiences. Recently, in honor of Valentine's Day, my students wrote break up poems. I tried to get them to write love poems, but they were very resistant. The class combined all of their poems (and in some cases, stories) and we are creating a book based on another collection with poems called The Hell With Love. What follows is the introduction I wrote to their book of poetry. I am quite proud of them, and excited to share their accomplishment:
I have heard various people assert that teenagers can’t fall in love. I proclaim right here and now that this is a falsehood. Teenagers fall in and out of love more than the women on Sex in the City. Falling in love as a teenager is just as traumatizing, if not more so, than falling in love as an adult.
Literature is full of teenagers who do drastic things because they were in love: seventeen year old Abigail in The Crucible tries to murder the wife of her former lover; fourteen and sixteen year old Juliet and Romeo commit suicide because they can’t be together, and the students fully identify with these characters. My own brother lost 20 pounds in the course of one month because he couldn’t do anything but write bad love songs on his guitar after his girlfriend broke up with him. Ten years later, I am still extremely bitter over the way a boy treated me in high school; I still cry about the hurt he caused, and I can’t think about it without wanting to mortally wound him.
That’s not all, though: throughout the course of my short career in education, I have seen teens fall in love, fall out of love, and be devastated and even traumatized by the experience. I have read hate poems, love poems, and breakup poems. I have seen massive amounts of mascara trail down a crying cheek. I have seen teenagers not graduate, drop out, become depressed, and lose massive amounts of weight. One girl brought a gun to school because her boyfriend, who got her pregnant, broke up with her. I have seen an A student not care about anything because his girlfriend broke up with him. Several students are on medication for depression brought on by a broken heart. All because of love. Because I live in Utah, many people have those fancy vinyl letters that say, “All Because Two People Fell in Love” framing families with scores of children. My students could slap those words on the wall, but instead of loving pictures of families, there would be scraps of hate poetry, pictures of dances, love sonnets, battered hearts, dried roses, prescriptions of Prozac, and heaps of tissues.
Teenagers can fall in love. And they fall out of love quite often. And because they are so young, it hurts ten times worse than anything they have ever felt before. Music, more often than not, becomes the balm to their tortured souls. They listen to black music about hate, love, and hurt. They listen to sappy ballads because it makes them cry when they really want to do nothing else. Then, they write poetry. Sonnets, ballads, free verse, and anything else they can fathom.
When I am hurting and sad, I head to Barnes and Noble. I have always felt that Barnes and Noble can solve all my problems, if not the problems of the world. On one of these fateful trips, when I was tired of crying and my heart hurt from aching, I stumbled across a collection of poems titled The Hell with Love. Because of my emotional state, I snatched the book up and bought it without looking at the contents. I got the book home, and found that the book was a collection of poems with the purpose of mending a broken heart. The book asserts that there are eight stages of nursing a broken heart: Rage, Sadness, Self-Hatred, False Hope, Resolve, Relapse, Real Hope, and Moving On. I flipped through the pages, and the first poem I ran across was called “Somewhere A Seed.” I read it and smiled. I already felt better. This book would indeed help my poor broken heart to mend:
“Somewhere A Seed”
Michael Fried
Somewhere a seed falls to the ground
That will become a tree
That will be felled
From which thin shafts will be extracted
To be made into arrows
To be fitted with warheads
One of which, some day when you least expect it,
While the winter sun is shining
On a river of ice
And you feel farthest from self-pity,
Will pierce your shit-filled heart.
This year, for Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be fun to write love poetry. I was met with intense resistance. The students only conceded the love poetry day after a promise to spend more time on hate poetry and poems to mend a broken heart. When I saw the enthusiasm for an outlet of the rage and hurt they felt, I immediately thought of my The Hell with Love book.
When I approached the subject, there was an intense discussion about broken hearts and broken dreams. The result is this book. My students each contributed two poems to our version of The Hell with Love, and after reading their pieces, I am amazed by their heartfelt expressions. I was sad when I read poems that could only come from experiences, poems of rage, of hurt, and of sadness. I laughed when I read “Medicine” by Eythan Barney, and I was proud when I read “You are Not My Sun” by Mae Goss. I wasn’t surprised when most of the class cheated and wrote a Rage poem, even if it wasn’t their assignment. I felt for Morgan when I read “Roadkill,” and saw the very vivid picture she chose. I wanted to scream, “YES!” when I read Michelle May’s first line of her poem “__________,”. Overall, I don’t think I have ever been more pleased with any group of students.
This book is a collection of condensed emotion, genuine teenage fear, pain, rage, and hope. I think it is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
Here are a few of the poems and pieces that I liked especially:
In A Big Cardboard Box
Jeni Allred
Junk.
The picture on my dresser.
The one with your arms around me.
You looked like you wished I was another girl in that picture.
Junk.
That stuffed animal you got me.
It feels as rough as splintering wood.
But I forced my eyes to shine when you gave me that frozen wolf.
Junk.
You rusty-held-together-with-duct-tape truck.
You saw me walking home in the cold, but you drove right by.
It’s hard to tell if you ever think of me
While you’re honking your horn and waving.
Junk.
Your sister asked me for my number so you could call me.
Why don’ t you ask me yourself because I still see you around?
Tell you what, love of mine, I’m not going to put in any effort.
Nothing but
Junk.
Fault
Jessica Scott
It’s all your fault.
You’re stupid,
Annoying,
Dumb fault.
If you weren’t so fat
He wouldn’t have left.
If you would have come last Thursday
He wouldn’t have left.
It’s your fault he’s gone
And it’s your fault
He found her
It’s your fault—
Unrealistic
Unworthy
Fault.
Sincerely,
Myself
Over You
Stephanie Schmidt
When I think about you now you’re just a memory.
Nothing more than a mistake in my life
Nothing more than a stupid boy who broke my heart.
Lesson learned.
Medicine
Eythan Barney
After months of research I’ve found the cure. The strain of heartache you infected me with was unique, resistant to generic medicines, unaffected by over-the-counter treatments. I suffered. You make me suffer. But I’ve found the cure. She’s gorgeous.
