Cynical Travel Poem, with Stereotypes

Let’s go to the Canadian wilderness

Paddle canoes across crystalline ripples

See Indians glare and set their traps

Avoid those earthen iron teeth

Watch your step, or else they’ll snap

Or, no, let’s go somewhere different today

How about the famed Oregon Coast?

Getting lost on Portland’s one-way streets

We’ll eat some crunchy Starbuck’s toast

Or see posh artists paint and boast

Okay, maybe not. We’ll try somewhere else

What do you say, somewhere sunny?

Let’s drop down to California’s bays

Watch plastic people soak up the rays

Then smoggy skies might darken the day

I don’t know, what do you think?

They’re all screaming with personality

Some are urban, some are abandoned

And summer time in one,

is like winter in another

So you choose, or I’ll choose the other

- Chantel Roice

Chantel Roice graduated from Journeys School in 2011. She is enrolled at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Chantel is contemplating a major in English, yet her true love is fine arts.

I Am of the Mountains

I am of the mountains…

            and of the wind

Forged within the embrace

            of the skyward reaching arms

                        of Earth itself.

She is within me…and I am made whole

            in her hands…

She calls to me…and I come unto her

            to be taken in…

To be healed…she fills my

            hollow places

                        with her breath…

And I am saturated with newness…

Made known…known fully

            and revealed…even unto my self…

for I am of the mountains…

They know me…as I am fully known…

            they sing back to me the song

                        that echoes in my soul…

and I am remembered.

- Heidi Ramseur

Heidi Ramseur was born and raised in Jackson Hole, where she trained from a very young age to dance, sing, paint and write her little soul out.  A performing member of Contemporary Dance Wyoming, her passion for art, dance, and music fuels her desire to share with others the joy of creating.  

 

The Rider

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

- by Naomi Shihab Nye

Jackson was fortunate to enjoy a reading from the esteemed poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, on September 19 as part of the Wyoming Humanities Council’s “Civility Matters” project. Among her many honors, she was elected in 2010 to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets.