For the last time, I hugged the air deeply
I held to my heart  the smiles of most loved friends
My friends! Will I ever see them again?
I am sending my warmest greeting to all of them 

From the day I was born, formed of blood
For nine months in the womb of my mum
I was not told I would leave my home one day
Who knows of the next day, of our fate? 

I was not taught to fight
But as a displaced one I had to learn
How to stay strong against all odds.
What was not given to me in life
Is to find the truth on my own way
To separate goodness from badness
And ask those who’ve experienced both 

I am displaced, my sisters too
Like my ancestors, decades ago
I am displaced, like a migratory bird
Like blossoms of spring after a strong wind
I am displaced, like shells washed on the shore
Like fallen golden leaves in the fall
I am displaced with my memories
With my soul and my mind 

I escaped, leaving the war behind
But my resilience is strong: to use my voice
And sketch a new world with my words
Displacement is not a symbol
A label exclusive for the “brown”, the “black”, the other ones
Displacement is color blind,
It’s not a name, shall not be a shame
It is not to live in fear
Is not to live in jail with violence 

You can not draw the curtain,
To the realities once you see the truth
Don’t stay deaf or blind, open your eyes!
Thousands of us are left behind.
But we are not to stay silent,
We’ll go ahead with closed fists and open minds!
The day, when everyone will be free
Like tides on an ocean
Or, rays of sunshines on an iceberg
We will make it!
The day, that freedom won’t be a dream,
We will aim for it!
Those who lost their lives in the sea
We won’t forget them!
Those who wait behind barbed wires!
We won't forget them!
With those who have been in the front line
We will raise the sails of freedom…
I am committed to that struggle!. 

For no one is free, until we are! 

Nowadays, the perception of teens brings images of a spoiled, coddled generation, glued to their screens. Perhaps our society puts little value in giving the youth responsibility, but rather wants to protect these formative years. As a student of history, I have come across many examples of children and teens holding positions of power and responsibility. Among royalty and commoners alike, the responsibility of youth was to be an equal partner in providing for their families. I’m by no means idealizing the past as a utopia of responsibility. History is full of the horrors of child labor. But I would like to take voyages through time to look into several examples of youth being capable of executing complicated tasks.

First, we shall see those who went on to be great. Louis XIV, the Sun King, succeeded his father at five, while France was fighting Habsburg Austria in the Thirty Years’ War. He helped negotiate the Westphalia treaty, but even though France won, this caused bankruptcy. Then, revolution caused collapse and until the end of his reign, Louis would rule the country on his own behalf. To save France, he wisely appointed Jean Colbert as Finance General to improve the economy. Louis increased exports and took power away from the military aristocracy and, cunningly, he supported the Netherlands in a war before defeating them, expanding French territory. In the next decades, he defeated corsairs attacking French shipping, and spread European goods around the world through embassies to Asia. By the times he died, France was a metropolis.

Another powerful child ruler worth mentioning is Shapur of Persia. After coming of age, this young emperor set to work removing the effects of a humiliating treaty.

Shapur then started a campaign against the Arabs and Eastern Romans. He took over part of Armenia and defeated the mighty Romans in battle. Persia then annexed Armenia. He died in 379. Shapur is considered one of Persia’s greatest kings and left a lasting legacy.

On the converse side, there are some ineffective sovereigns who died early, and failed to preserve their nations. One example is Edward the VI. He ascended to the throne at age 10, made several not-so-great decisions, including emptying the English coffers, and caught ill and died at fourteen.

Then there was Puyi, the last Emperor, who came to power at the inept age of four. His rule was marked by the Japanese invasion of Korea and civil unrest, leading to his deposition. He was made Manchurian King, but he had his servants beaten or even killed for his own amusement. After the war, he died a commoner in Beijing. In conclusion, this shows us that while some child rulers have excelled, others have not.

Which path is right for young people, power or a normal life? The more we teens are allowed to do may (or may not) let us become responsible adults. I’ll let you decide.

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup. I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. There’s been a short break, but Poetry Soup is back, with “Witchgrass,” by the late Louise Gluck.

Louise Gluck was born on April 22, 1943 in New York City. She wrote 12 books of poetry, including The Wild Iris, which I will be reading from today. Though she never finished a degree, Gluck attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, and went on to later teach poetry at Stanford and English at Yale. She won many awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. From 2003 to 2004, she was also the U.S. poet laureate. She died on October 13, 2023.

Louise Gluck’s personal experiences are prominent in her poetry. She often wrote about trauma and sadness. Some of her poetry was also influenced by Greek mythology, such as in her chapbook, October. Her poems are haunting, even in The Wild Iris, when Gluck combines her themes of tragedy with seemingly innocent flowers, which is exactly what she does in “Witchgrass.”

Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—

If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—

as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
One enemy—

I’m not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion—

It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.

I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.

Louise Gluck centers her poem on a plant called witchgrass. It’s a sort of weed, unwanted in gardens and often pulled out. Gluck connects this unwantedness to her own life, as well as to the lives of others. Rather than backing down from the slurs and names she refers to in stanza two, she proudly declares, “I was here first.” Rather than agreeing that witchgrass is unneeded and forgetting about it, rather than getting rid of it and writing about something different, something more exciting, Gluck gives this plain weed a personality and significance. She shows how important the smallest things can be, how everything can play a role. By identifying with a plant – and a despised, insignificant one at that – Gluck composes an original and deep poem.

In the first three stanzas, Gluck ends with dashes, signifying pauses in her speech. As she keeps going, however, she gets rid of these, showing that she is becoming more confident in what she is saying.

But even the witchgrass has grown violent from the ages of violence that have been committed towards it. It has grown over the flowers, an act it cannot control, but one that it doesn’t excuse – it is stronger, or “sturdier,” after all. In a way, the witchgrass has embraced the concept of “survival of the fittest.” For plants and animals, this is a law of nature – the bigger organisms survive more than the smaller. But, humans having stepped in, the situation becomes a question of either preference or prejudice, leaving us to ponder whether what is acceptable in nature is acceptable for human beings – and why it is or isn’t.

Told from the point of view of the plant itself, Gluck ends the poem with the line, “I will constitute the field.” She means that witchgrass, despite being hated by humans, has the right to and can be a part of the field that they love. However, this is where survival of the fittest comes in again – because witchgrass could also reclaim the field when the weaker flowers that rely on human care have died.

In “Witchgrass,” Louise Gluck shows us the perspective of an ordinary weed and leaves us to think about the meaning behind it. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!

Welcome to A Collector’s Armory. This is a podcast about collecting different things throughout the stages of life. As you might remember from Episode 1, an armory is a place where weapons are kept, but I’m using the word broadly to name a place where any collectible could be stored. 

I’ll be your host, Ayaan Pirani, and I have been collecting items for a long time. I'm located in Houston, Texas, and I am in 6th grade. Last episode, I covered the basic information about collecting items and answered a few basic questions about collecting such as: What are the prices of collectables? and Who are some famous people who collect items?

The name of this episode is "Collecting From A Young Age." When I was young, I would collect toy cars. Each and every day I would beg my parents for a new matchbox car, so we settled upon an agreement. Every day that I worked hard and listened to them I would be promised a new toy car. This deal carried on to about when I was the age of 4. Most of the time I acted well though I never really received a new car because my parents did not care to waste time and go to a Dollar Tree every other day. 

That's why many parents make young kids collect various nature objects because they would not have to spend a dollar all of the time on cars or dolls. Engaging children with collecting shells or rocks from a very young age can be useful because it will allow them to spot different details in various objects. Many children may find satisfaction with collecting many items and pursue it as a hobby or for personal enjoyment. About ⅓ of preschool age kids pursue interests in collecting one type of object. 

In addition to collecting items in nature, some young kids collect toys and stuffed animals. You may have seen a 3 year old’s crib filled with stuffed animals of all kinds. Instead of forcing kids to give up on their collections you should influence them to collect more items that may help them focus on how to arrange and categorize the toys. Kids who forcefully collect things due to anxiety may begin hoarding items, which is not good. In general, pediatricians consider collecting items a huge positive to their future as it gives them a leg ahead in figuring out their interests.

Before our time ends I want to leave you with a quote that I think many kids would agree with: "Collectors are happy people." - Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, a German writer.

This is your host, Ayaan Pirani, signing off for today. Next month we’ll be talking about collectables for ages 6-9. Leave a comment down below stating what you collect. Until next time! See ya!

As I move about the market, I spot beautiful wood carvings, polished to a spectacular gleam, and traditional calligraphy, paintings, hand drawn and painted in front of your very eyes. There are hair accessories, a lot of them, and little bracelets and a ton of fake jewelry. There are assorted wood selections, each of them from a different state, proudly arrayed, each with a tiny label of the wood’s home state. But there are only a few stores I am interested in. I walk past bouquets of flowers, arranged and preserved for the wintertime, a sea of them on one side of the market, stretching all the way to Virginia Street. On the other side, there are assorted food stalls, each with their own specialty, one selling Rainier cherries and Lapin cherries and Bing cherries and so much more. Another offers fresh roasted nuts, arranged in a buffet-style orderly line. 

But as I walk on, past the vegetable sellers, past the sea of flowers, past the nuts, past the wood carvings, the paintings, the jewelry and accessories, I get to the place I was looking for. The classic Pike Place Fish store stands there, a crowd clustered around it. I walk up to the counter. A bellow emanates from the lively stall: “We got a SALMON!!”  A response comes “OOHHH OOHHH SALMON!!!”  I spot the order suddenly flying through the air, dipping toward the ground, and… At the last moment, a fishmonger with an apron, clad in muck boots, not slipping despite the wet floor, catches it. Applause showers from the audience as cameras click and video recordings start. The wet fish smell starts to get to me as I walk up to the counter and state my order. The guy at the front starts smiling. 

“Ahh,” he says. “You want the oysters, eh?” I give a nod. “They’re free. Go take em!”

I raise my eyebrows. “Raw, fresh, oysters?”

“Sure, they’re raw. We even give hot sauce! But you gotta eat them here!” He laughs. 

“Nah, I’ll pass.” I reply. 

“You sure?” He asks again, hands already moving to hose down and wrap my order. 

“Sure as can be.” I repeat. 

As I walk back to my car with oysters in my bag, I decide to visit the gum wall, a tradition that I do every visit. As I walk toward it, the grays and blues and blacks start merging into a vibrant pattern as I make my way to the piece of collective art. It is vibrant, neon colors, boring into my eyes, yet it is also set in darkness, black gum of a suspicious flavor and white, drained, depleted gum scattered all over. It is the essence of creativity, human ingenuity, and culture in one place, but every 6 months is hosed down, cleansed of all this. It is a collage of the people, one that is universal, one that anyone can add an important part to, no matter the age or size. From the wood bits from every state to the hand-made paintings to the flying fish and music playing and the magical tricks, the market has a special place in my heart. So, taking out a small stick of gum out of my pocket, I chew for a bit, and add my own piece to the collage of culture. 

All the smells, tastes, and feels of the movie theater do not compare to

Willie Wonka, after moving to a new place, looks for money in chocolate sales. On his first attempt, the police shut his business down because his groundbreaking chocolate is threatening the other businesses in town.  He then gets pulled into a hotel that gives him a lot of unnecessary debt ($10,000) to pay off. The people who own the hotel give him a contract to sign, but Wonka does not read the fine print and gets charged for unnecessary things like going up and down the stairs. He decides to hatch a plan to sell his chocolate without permission and has great success. This decision shows that Wonka has a lot of perseverance and does anything he can do to continue his passion. His friends that stay at the hotel help him along the way, showing that they can be helpful in his plans.

As well as being entrepreneurial, Wonka shows great loyalty to his friends and allies. For example, in one scene, Wonka was a very loyal friend and portrayed an important lesson to everyone watching the movie. When the people in his town get very irritated because Wonka did not stop selling chocolate, the police banish Wonka from their town using a one way boat ticket to an unknown place. After he realizes that his friends are in danger, he jumps off the boat, swims to shore, and tries his best to get them out of trouble. Wonka shows that friends are more important than chocolate. 

In conclusion, the new movie Wonka is much more than a movie. It is a life lesson that everyone can use to become a better person. This movie changed the way I value different parts of my life, and encouraged me to be more loyal to the people I know. In addition, whenever I think about giving up on a task, I think of Wonka and how he persevered to keep making chocolate. A well-acted, perfectly-shot movie like this one is a must-see, and people of every age will love it. 

A note from Laura Moran

Dear Readers,

I hope this message finds you well and that you’re settling into the rhythm of the new year with renewed energy and focus for the year ahead. In that vein, I have some exciting Refugee Project news to share.

Firstly, I’m so excited to share that Caroline Gao, a member of the Stone Soup community and frequent participant in Refugee Project initiatives, won first place in the San Jose Library Fall into Fiction contest (10-12 age group) for her short story, titled "To My Penpal." As Caroline explains, her story was inspired by her participation in the Stone Soup Refugee Project pen pal exchange and Half-Baked Art Collaboration. Drawing inspiration from the handwritten letters she received from young people in Kakuma Refugee camp, and the subsequent independent research she conducted on the UNESCO website, Caroline constructed a fictionalized narrative of a refugee family’s life in Kakuma Camp, seeking to represent the unique writing style of the young people with whom she corresponded. Read Caroline’s story and share in our heartfelt congratulations on this fantastic achievement!

In other news, the Refugee Project is the recipient of the 2023 ruth weiss foundation School Poetry Award grant. In the words of the funding body:

“The poet ruth weiss was a child survivor of World War II and dedicated her entire life to raising awareness of the ramifications of war on children. Her poetry often expresses a child’s war trauma and the joy of being safe and free to grow as a child. This year’s poetry prompt focuses on the effects of war on children and what is good for children. We feel the work that your organization is doing is incredibly important and wish to support it.”

We are so honored to receive this award! To see some new Refugee Project writing, please check out the web page for our new Refugee Project collaborators, Humanitarian Service Team.

Thank you for your continued support of the Stone Soup Refugee Project—without it, collaborations such as those featured here would not be possible—and happy winter writing!

Yours sincerely,

The Stone Soup Refugee Project