Poetry Packet

An Open Letter From Rescue Annie to the Norwegian Toymaker (Heart Poem)

            Dear Asmund,

            When people ask you how I came to be do you tell then that our love story started with choking? With a little boy blue in the face and a crowd full of people shocked into stillness and your voice saying, “I am going to teach them how to breath.” Pretty soon people all over the world were pressing their mouths to mine, forcing breath into me. They think I am just a mannequin. You never told them how we met, that in 1891, I stood on the wrong side of a railing and let me body drop. Like a quarter into a wishing well. Like maybe this would finally make things different. When they pulled my body from the sand I was still smiling. You saw my dead face in the newspapers and called it your perfect canvas. Said I was so beautiful, men couldn’t wait to put their mouths on me. Pretty soon newspapers started calling you a hero. Because even though you couldn’t bring me back, you kept trying, but CPR won’t back from the dead, it’s just an attempt to preserve the body and more often than not the only thing you succeed at is cracking ribs. Asmund, if you hadn’t turn me to hard plastic my body would be broken hundreds of times day by careless hands trying desperately to save me, to push on my chest like the slamming of a door and I am already gone. My body is the first place so many people learn that sometimes saving someone is just another term for holding on after the body has gone cold. That moment you press your lips to someone else’s knowing it is the last time you will ever hold their body against yours, memorizing the exact anatomy of futility.

 Asmund, when people ask you how you and I came to be, do you tell them our love story started with choking? Am I everything you had hoped for? You’ve kept me 17 for a hundred and twenty two years now, soon will you dress me in a graduation gown? Carry me across the stage, on our wedding day, will you hold my torso to your chest for our first dance? Place a gentle hand across the back of my neck and say, “Smile Annie!” Smile like I ever had a choice, I have not broken this smile since you melted my face into it and you laugh and laugh because you are so clever. We are not unique, we are like so many other love stories, clever men and the women they melt down to better fit their hands, well they are right to call you a hero. You’ve kept so many people alive; I just never asked to be one of them. Let them bury me in an unmarked grave, tell them I never asked to be saved, never asked for anything but stillness. I was born with perfect lungs and I knew how to breathe before you got here.

Heart Poem Response

This poem stood out to me within hearing the first few lines. I was online, on YouTube, watching poems from poetry slams and competitions. Brenna Twohy is my favorite author, so when I saw a 9 minute video of her, I had to click on it. On this video was not the poem that I will be writing about, but is one of my favorite poems by her. This video made me watch part two and that is where I found this video. She is very similar to me; very awkward, so the way she introduced this poem, I loved. She said a synopsis of the poem, but in a choppy, sort of uncomfortable kind of way. When she was reciting the poem, you could tell the difference between Rescue Annie and Brenna Twohy. This was the second poem that I just could not stop watching or listening to. I mostly love this poem because it never stops making me think. There is so much to respond to in this poem, which is why I chose this particular on of her poems.

She uses repetition to state different points in the poem. The first time she says, “When people ask you how I came to be do you tell then that our love story started with choking,” Rescue Annie addresses her story and what happened to her. The second time she says this, she addresses the way she feels about what happened to her. She also repeats the name ‘Asmund’. She addresses him as if she is saying, “Yes, I am still talking to you, Asmund. This is all for you and don’t you forget that.” Rescue Annie is also not only talking about herself, she is talking about everyone who she feel has had similar experiences to her.

This poem made me think a lot about the idea of suicide and ‘saving’ people from it. In the poem, Annie doesn’t necessarily get to decide whether she wants to live or die. Her spirit is gone, but her body is alive and it makes me think, why are we trying to keep her alive when she is already dead? Who are we doing this for, them or ourselves? The Annie that the doll was based off of has been dead for over one hundred and twenty years and somehow she is still alive. If someone’s spirit and will to live is gone, then they are just a shell, which is technically what Annie is. This also reminds me of a doll, something that we drag around, just as a keepsake- to remind us of happy things or times. It does not actually do anything, but use this to make us feel better. This poem makes me think, ‘if we force people who have lost their will to live, to stay alive, won’t we just be carrying around a doll?’

I find this poem so amazing because of the fact that it raises so many questions about life, death and humanity. I had to listen to it multiple times before I could realize all of the themes. It brought out emotions that were, until recently, unexplored.

9/11

As everyone exploded around me

I stand tall

My arms outstretched

My head straight

Everyone is looking to me for help

But I cannot help them

They look at me with sadness in their eyes

And despair in their souls

When I look down

I’m crumbling too

Now what do I do?

I look around frantically

Everything has stopped midway

Smoke and debris

Frozen in the still breeze

I am no longer burden to breath

 air clouded with dust

I look back down

My metal sweltering from the heat of the bombs

My sandy colored bricks

Soon to become part of the wreckage on the ground

When I realize my hands can move

I try to pick my pieces back up

But I cannot move through solid smoke

In this poem, I wanted to capture the feeling of the church and the cross. I asked myself, ‘What would the cross be thinking right now?’ I knew during this time religious people would look to their God for help.

Valentine’s Day

He grabbed my hand

I reached out for her hand

His hands were cold and clammy

Her hands were soft and warm

My house seemed like 100 miles away, but I couldn’t walk fast enough

It was funny, was her house getting closer? I lingered a little at the start of the block

He stopped. Ugh, why?

Our hands swung as we stood

He was eyeing my awkwardly

“So I had a great time tonight”

“Me too, I had fun”

I pulled her close to me

I stepped back cautiously

I leaned in

My neck swivled but he found my lips anyway

Her lips tasted like strawberries

He tasted like the extra butter that I begged him not to put on and twizzlers, which I will never be able to eat again

The kiss lingered for 6 seconds

I couldn’t even breathe

I smiled at her

I felt nauseous

“I really like you”

“Uhh, I have curfew, see you!”

In this poem, I wanted to explore two opposite sides of the spectrum. I figured that the best way to express that would be a date. First, I decided whether I wanted the girl or the guy to have a bad time. I wanted to emphasize the different perceptions of the same exact actions.

Sloane (Extra poem based off of the book: The Program)

First they took Lacey

My best friend

But I could handle that

Miller couldn’t

Then they took Miller

My best friend

But I could handle that

James couldn’t

Then they took James

My boyfriend

They could handle that

I couldn’t

Then they took me

Me

I made sure no one could handle that

In this poem, I wanted repetition to be the main focus. In a way, I wanted to make up my own type of poem (like a sonnet). 4 stanzas, the first three are 4 lines each and the last stanza is 3 lines. In the first three, each line is essentially stating the same message, but with different examples. The narrator of this poem is the main character of the book, The Program.