Let’s make this a celebration:
Of rain pouring in the streets on the very day we meant to have a picnic,
of shaking our fists as snow drifts down in the middle of April,
of dust-veiled books with missing covers
and torn pages smelling of ancient bookshelves,
of pre-calculus problems you did just because you felt like doing some math.
Let’s make this a celebration of teachers shouting at classes that wouldn’t shut up,
of the folder that survived half a semester before dying of a broken heart,
of the class you couldn’t take because you needed another to graduate.
Let’s celebrate the cough-coughs and ha-has and ahems,
those stupid armpit noises,
and belches that were heard by undiscovered tribesmen in Africa,
who rated them as tens;
the crying and the hugging,
the laughter like the wailing of banshees,
the labored breathing, the gasps,
the singing in an out-of-key monotone,
the drumming on tables like rain on the rooftops,
the raya, ahavah, dod,
and love, eternal sun;
the clapping molto accelerando for having eaten our fill.
Let’s celebrate that girl whose constant refrain is, “Hang on a sec, I’m texting,”
the boy who wears black nail polish and eyeliner,
the football player who leans up against skin-toned lockers
just to watch the forms of birch trees passing by,
the prom queen who gazes around haughtily and condemns you to unpopularity
but all the while hides her stomach and fears she’s fat,
and the fact that you don’t know everything about any one of these people.
Let’s make this a celebration of life,
of all the shining bubbles we blow,
of incandescence, significance, seashells, eyelashes,
of coloring-book pages and 96 crayons,
of little annoyances we hate with a fiery passion,
the things we wish we could do but never try,
of chasing the moon,
of wonder,
and everything that makes this life a life.
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139,537 Literary Works • 672,600 Reviews
hi Blues. going through some older works for Team Tortoise, and couldn't believe I saw your name! So here i am now that youre a published author haha.
wow okay. Nostalgia punch to the gut.
hahaha this is so specific but so funny and accurate I still have a few folders with trashy artwork ten years later.
girl xD accurate them. "rated them as tens" is so funny when referring to tribesmen. Feels very commercial-esque humor.
As a former athlete it was nice to not see the jock stereotype just trashing some hot and hunky blonde dude.
This however feels very stereotypical and a bit more harsh than all the celebratory things. Feels a bit out of place for the tone of the poem, and doesnt really feel like it's saying we should celebrate her.
This poem hit a nice chord of relatability without being too anachronistic and sticking you in a very outdated time quickly, aside from the texting line. It was too nostalgic for emotional midnight brain though. Really hit the heartstrings of the innocence and joy we found in little things. How tiny things felt so significant and significant things felt so conquerable....hmmm. Maturing is cool, but so was being free spirits
~Messy
Hey there, BluesClues! This is Alex, and I'll be reviewing this poem today. I was looking at some of the old YWS poems that never got their due love, thanks to the new sorting feature Nate put in place. And in that, yours stood out to me. I don't know how much of this will be helpful given it's been 16 years thus you must've improved at poetry exponentially and you might never return to read this, but I wanted to show my appreciation of the work regardless. It's never too late, right? Let's dive right in ~
This was an incredible slice of life and feel good poem. The phrasing, the message- everything's impeccable. It's simple relatability really won over me, I've not seen such well written works so often. I'm really surprised how the reviewers missed this then, but if not for them, I wouldn't get to do this today.
The first stanza really puts things into perspective right away, and I thought it a great way to begin. It's talking about the unexpected happenings that make a day worse or things that aren't conventionally celebrated- rain during picnic, snow in April, and books with missing covers and torn pages. It's telling us to embrace the flawed details of life, and I think that's beautiful. The math line stood out to me in it's relevancy, as it feels lot less poetic and philosophical than the others. But given the poem's free verse, I can't claim it's a lazy rhyme fit either. I must not be getting the significance of it, perhaps it could benefit from a little clarity.
The second stanza solidified in the scene of a school, and I like what I see! It's silly mostly, but designed to be highly relatable which lands a good impact. The line about taking another class to graduate stood out in its bittersweet jab, I'm sure many people have gone through it, even if not me.
The third stanza is my favorite as it focuses on different types of kids in school. The character demographic is so diverse, as if they're not my most loved part of writing! The prom queen called out to me, as we see the pain she experiences and inflicts- a manifestation of toxicity. Her description might've been the most complex, and rightfully so. The ability to put yourself and walk a mile in their shoes goes a long way to empathy. I like how the end acknowledges that while all these surface level observations may be true, we don't often see the whole picture of someone's life from outside. I think that's a great subtle lesson at compassion in general.
The last stanza really delivered, in the sense of tying it all together. These are definitely the best written lines of the poem that capture the gist of the poem-
It's so fitting, and arouses certain memories or flashbacks for the reader. The personal association makes the reader invested, and you manage to keep the attention seamlessly. The moon line was also pretty well thought. And the last line- implying it's everything simple that constitutes our life and even if we don't particularly like that part, it's worth celebrating. Kind of like when you love a person, you love their shortcomings and securities too.
This was incredible, with the reading so worth it. That's all I have for now, thanks for sharing. Until next time ~
Love, Alex
Wow, throwback Thursday! (Let's pretend it's Thursday for a second.) I actually write considerably less poetry now, since fiction has become my main focus, but it was cool to come back to a poem that (I must be honest) I had no memory of writing 😂 Thanks so much for reviewing!
That's cool, thank you very much. I have actually never heard of that form...this was for a poetry slam for class senior year, we had to come up with lots of imagery and stuff for it...
I am assuming this is in the form of villanelle? I have never read a poem in this form before so I am sorry, but I can't review it. I just wanted to say I do love it.
A. S.