Toni+Marshall



"A poem begins with a lump in your throat"- Robert Frost Click Link To watch my video! http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2270565/VID00007.mov Memory Poem He’s dancing on a bullet for belief he belongs here. He had been dancing so long he had forgotten he had been there engaging in grim reapers celebration, he gave us no warning. What will be the trigger to figure out he has purpose? In May two years ago I realized He wasn’t going to leave a note just a locked bedroom with his children and wife standing there with bone marrow spread against there skin cells. And there ears ringing from the shattering noise of death Why didn’t you consider how we might have felt. In every 4:1 men suicides are committed if my mom haven’t stopped u you would’ve been a statistic You locked her in a room and held a gun to your head hoping to see if we would care or miss you enough. Dad if you didn’t know I seen myself in you that day. I know how you felt, wanting death to take over because you thought you had no purpose, You’ve been dancing on a bullet for belief you belongs here. Mines was a razor. I wanted to die for so long after lexi shot her head off. I prayed that after a while our feet should have be tired of dancing. But they didn’t they kept going into a deeper depression until there was nothing left of us to call us human. Just corpses. Two years later I finally get to tell you I need you here to stay. I’m too much like you to leave me. If you would’ve killed yourself you might is well have shot me too. I’m glad you are better now but there is still that thought in my mind of what if u were gone. How human would I feel then?

ODE To Lorenzo I fear of doors never shutting completely There is always that space where your secrets can leak through. New beginnings to escape the past.. how hard will we shut our souls closed to find ourselves. Trapped in closets or a casket who knows the difference anymore We claim to be so alive but lets be realistic.. You ever get that feeling where you feel your flesh being ripped off of you, but your memories and past are still seeping in memories are intangible dangerous and deadly. You can’t watch your back from yourself, But we try some girls lay on their back to get a piece of something or someone to tucked away inside themselves Men try as well stand behind a gun to make themselves feel more alive Memories are deadly When I look at you and hear you talk I can hear the screeching tunes of death scrapping away at you. I have so many questions like why do you think you’re a bad person? Why don’t you apologize for your actions? Do you think it will make a difference? I admire your petrified responses.

You call me your karma I never understood why When you tell me stories I never look at you as the bad guy. To me you are a metaphor that hasn’t been created yet. A person people might not Understand but I get you. I’m just not sure you get yourself We all make mistakes that reappear when we want them to least. But I’m here to hold you.. Suffocate your presence until you are whole again I need you, Lorenzo I would never say a person name in a poem but you keep me going. While I wrote this poem I tried to figure out how can I describe your differences within me but you don’t have any. You are amazing, what some women call phenomenal. If I would barricade you in my heart and hand over to u so u could know yourself a little better I would So show me your memories, insecurities and perfections Ill put you back together by breaking myself in to pieces because that’s the only way I know how to fix you but I promise u I can Will you let me? Will you allow me to hold myself because I’m really holding you, Your trapped inside me, I praise your hands they cradle my cesspool of a soul so miraculously

And your eyes they seep through my being. Everything you think is a flaw I see as stepping stone to better yourself.

So I warn you, dnt turn your back on your past, humans always try to turn their back on themselves your memories make you, you Memories are deadly is you do not accept them When I look at you and hear you talk I can hear the screeching tunes of death scrapping away at you. I need you here to stay I have so many questions I have yet to ask you like why do you think you’re a bad person? Do you know you helped save a life? What would the world be without you? How much love do you need me to pour into a bottle to fix you? I admire your petrified responses.

Riff Poem **“I kind of hope that none of these are actually secrets I kind of want my body to know me better than the bullets would.” Ka’mone** Confession # 1 I don't know who I am most days when I wake up. I gather myself by picking up the pieces people left behind, The reason why they are behind is because I couldn't be what they wanted me to be. Confession #2 My bed sheets usually strangles my morality, dreams aren't the thing I look forward to sleeping with, I love the feelings of insecurities seeping into my pores. It makes me feel dead I mean alive I don't know the difference anymore; I've been walking as an expectation. Someone I can't live up to. Confession # 3 During last year people called me a "tweak", it made me suicidal. Slapped away my confidence and integrity, I want to thank those people because at least I'm still standing here baring more than ever before, They proved to me I can't be stopped even when I try to stop myself. I didn't want a pity party but I wondered did those people ever dream about me? dream about what I might do to myself if they broke me. Too bad they couldn't break something so fluid and disobedient, Confession # 4 I've always wanted to be alone. Sit on a planet and realize the world is so much larger than my problems. Procrastinate on progress for growing as a human being. I was always afraid. That growing up met growing into something I'm not. Confession # 5 I cry all the time

Confession # 6 Many people think I'm crazy, I'm just hurt all the time. I cope with different methods and I go to therapy. I'm not crazy though I just strive for perfection in others so I wont have to work on myself. Confession # 7 I'm not fit to love, but when I love I love hard and I never stop until I go numb. Confession # 8 I puzzle a smile on my face to make it through, I hate the reminder that I'm human, Confession # 9 I won't and can't write this with metaphors because this is so much farther and realer than a poet can be. I won't hide behind metaphors any longer. Confession # 10 I confess I have way more confessions than 10, but it's getting late so I have to refer you back to confession # 1 so you can understand me.

I was raised by- I wrote the poem a little different. I wrote a letter of things to warn my daughter about based off of what I was raised by.

Eleven things I want to warn my daughter. I want to raise her as a moving idea like I was. One never fall in love it leads you nowhere only left stranded with memories you can’t erase. I never want you to follow after that I want you to experience the feeling of being broken into pieces you can’t put back together, I want you to experience your first love and praise it because it remind you of the first time God held you in his palms love is so much greater than you. You were raised as a moving idea don’t forget that

Two be careful of the disobedience lurking in your blood stream. I want you to be respectful and intelligent so no one will take advantage of you. Listen to your mother she made mistakes she never wants you to have to go through

Three there is always someone trying to take whats left of you when you have nothing else to give. Have a tower stance don’t let anyone knock you for your your differences. They want them, they are craving your imperfections ready to devour them and show them to the world like it’s there own Don’t let them

Be afraid of expectations, make it your horror movie that scene that won’t stop playing and becomes black and white. you wont have any individuality.

Seven Beware of poets they are explosive, they will mind wrestle you until you are vulnerable and you will be left standing there with a mic and your words saying to yourself how did I get here? When did i become so open to sharing my thoughts my mother warned me about sharing, how did I become a carcass of the old me so quickly? remember your mother said you must grow and strip yourself of the old you when it’s time.

Eight be willing to learn. My dad always told me a smart person learns from their own mistakes a even smarter person learns from others. Look at the way the world is with naked eyes and never be afraid to fall or fail you’ll get back up eventually. As long as you are willing to change it and learn from it you will make history I promise Nine Never strive for perfection, it will break you. You will never know your purpose if you strive for it. Everyone is already folding you into a box full of expectations that they expect you to live up to. Don’t follow them, not even what I want for you. Follow your own imperfections as a light to better yourself if you choose Ten Be careful of the nights where you feel alone. Its hard to pull yourself out of those let god be the only influence that your legs fold into Z’s. you owe him your praise your tears, your pain. He’ll fix it, I promise. Mommy cant fix everything but your father can I promise you, Gods love is contagious. A cold you can’t get rid of, it makes you feel content. You’ll be grateful I told you this. God told me to.

Eleven The world is so much bigger than you are. remember you were raised as a moving idea. Sonnet I wish I could fold you into perfect Creases and put you into my pocket Pull you out when I need a reminder Life is so much greater when I see you A reflection of what happiness can be But paper is intangible my love looked at as religion always changing Not always happiness but pain too Love, a photograph we keep of someone A memory that stitches it's self on our hands after your first love you will caress no other memories think of no other person, photographs who knew they could do some many things? we still wish we could fold each other in our pockets

Written Analyzes

Throughout my poetry experience beyond this unit I have noticed the changes in my writing and how it has developed over time. I used to do word play a lot throughout all of my poems. I also used to make all of my characters females. I still have a tendency to do that because it is more relatable and obtains a better sense of realism to it. In this unit I found myself falling in love with list poems. An example is my rift poem which consisted of 10 things I want to confess to myself. I used the quote “** I kind of hope that none of these are actually secrets I kind of want my body to know me better than the bullets would.” Which was taken from one of the poets from the New York Urban word 2010 Slam team. I never realized that when I started my poems off with someones quote, to gather inspiration it was called a rift poem. **

I began to realize that in my poems I tend to write her, him and never I. The poem could be about me and I would never reveal that to the audience. To make the poem personal is a scary thing regardless if it is being performed or being read. I only have two poem that is personal my memory poem is included in those two. In my memory poem I speak in third personal then tie the poem together with the line” In May two years ago I realized He wasn’t going to leave a note just a locked bedroom with his children and wife standing there with bone marrow spread against there skin cells. And there ears ringing from the shattering noise of death.” I use first person for a split second then return to using him and he instead of dad.

I think the most challenging poem was the Sonnet because I am not used to poems that give me a standard limit on how far I can stretch my emotions. I think sonnets as well as Haiku's can be detrimental and helpful all at once. I think it can be detrimental because it put such restrictions on what it is I wanted to say. I think it is helpful because I learned how to use less unnecessary words which is a terrible writing habit I have. I noticed I tend to ramble on a topic or extend a metaphor so much the reader doesn’t understand. My writing to me is a huge story. All of my poems link together some type of way. Each topic relates to each other. I usually take a line form another poem and slide it in there because I write collections of my life experiences and the stories I hear from other people. I do not think I have a set writing pattern I honestly don’t think any writer does there is always something doesn’t and unique to the poet that sets it aside from the other. Poets always have that moment when they look at a poem and say, “Whew this one is going to be hot! My writing is evolving.”

Analyze for Sylvia Path == With these poems she does a lot of comparing and word play to have double meaning like in the line “Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball, This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.” A tear would usually be referenced to an eyeball. Also the fact that she used the word bailiwick as a description word for an egg that gave deeper meaning because that means one's sphere of operations or particular area of interest. So I think the egg is just a larger idea and concept of how people were before they broke out of there shell and did things that is compared to fragile objects such as china, tears and a blank piece of paper. The poem really doesn’t have a consistency when it comes to the speaker in the poem they do not the know the significances or difference of completely two different things such as the line “It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper” While reading all of her poems she uses the compare method but not with similes or metaphors. She also has individual stories that are usually told each stanza but if a person didn’t read a lot of her work they wouldn’t realize it was a constant pattern even if a person read one of her poems she compares a historical thing or just a story that might be person but the transition is so smooth a person may think she is just comparing again. In the poem Childless Women the first couple lines say “The womb rattles its pod, the moon discharges itself from the tree with nowhere to go.” She compares the world rotating everyday to show when the moon and sun appears as a comparison to a person and their stomach growing and evolving into something. I think her poems and use of figurative is amazing. It is difficult to use figurative language throughout a poem and expect the audience to understand the message being portrayed in the poem. I think sometimes in her poems she has so many metaphors it is hard to understand her meaning behind it. The poem “Childless Woman” I do not think I understand it completely. My favorite poem by her was “Candles” that poem is such a great romance story. “ She made something as simple as candles turn into a mystical world of what we all search for which in the end is love in anything in life. My favorite line in the poem is “ Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers, And the fingers, taken in by their own haloes, Grown milky, almost clear, like the bodies of saints.” ==

I chose this as my artwork because my hands created my poems and it took me awhile to learn how to draw a realistic hand for my art class so it was a work in process like my poetry.