Question

Portfolio Topic: Write two poems using different forms. They can be from your own point of view about something you feel strongly about, or they can be from the perspective of someone else.
Not free verse.

Answer 1

Sonnets and villanelles — two formal poems on things I care about. First: a Shakespearean sonnet about climate grief and small acts of repair. Second: a villanelle about persistence and collective care.

Shakespearean Sonnet (about climate and repair)
When spring returns and finds the river thin,
The ice that gave it voice lies cracked and gone;
The map of green forgets the hills within,
And oaks like elders bow beneath a dawn.
We mark the dates the flowers failed to wake
And tally summers that arrived too bold;
Yet in the ash a stubborn root will take,
And spool of sap keeps patience in its hold.
My hand that gathers grief knows how to make
Small offerings — a glass, a planted tree;
For acts are stitches sewn for sorrow’s sake,
Against the seam of night we press, agree.
Though storms may tear the rafters from their bound,
We'll plant new beams and pin them to the ground.

Villanelle (about activism, hope, and persistence)
I hold the future in a trembling hand,
The city sighs and counts its restless day,
and teach it how at last to rise and stand.

The candles flicker, stubborn though they may;
The alleys answer with a soft, slow say,
I hold the future in a trembling hand,

Each voice that rises shapes a common way;
The banners speak in color, shout, and say,
and teach it how at last to rise and stand.

We learn the weight of grief, the weight of land;
The past is heavy, tethered to the day,
I hold the future in a trembling hand.

Our fingers press the seeds into the sand;
A thousand small repairs begin to say,
and teach it how at last to rise and stand.

Not every victory comes formed and planned,
But morning moves like mercy through the gray;
I hold the future in a trembling hand,
and teach it how at last to rise and stand.