I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.
Because the poem was so mature and required seriousness, I felt like I couldn't express myself as I
needed to in front of the class. I felt embarrassed at times, because the interpretation of the poem that I
had found was just a little snippet of the poet's wish to become naughty and a bad girl. But I reminded
myself that sometimes, even I feel this way and I really wanted to take this poem seriously. Ms Ashley
said it could be a winning poem if done well. I plan on having a one-on-one session with her and really
make it great to perform.
As for my second poem, I chose one of my favorites (of my very limited poem 'repertoire'), "My papa's
waltz" by Theodore Roethke:
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
