So as part of my Poet Training Program, I put on my all-black outfit—and a baseball cap, but I called it my thinking cap. I also put on my mitt, because I’ve missed wearing it. I stared out my window.
More clouds. I’d already written about that.
UGH.
I decided some additional equipment might help, which I’ll note here in case future wannabe poets ever seek my advice:
•Pens—These would be better if they were the kind with the big feathers coming off the top and the ink that you dip your quill into, but instead I gathered what I could find around the house. Mostly free pens from doctors’ offices and real estate agents. But nestled in my drawer was an extra-special set of rainbow-colored gel pens that I’d totally forgotten about. Poets can write in color. They SHOULD write in color.
•Paper—Obviously. (I could have used a computer but I thought it was more like a poet to scratch things out on paper. It was part of the art form.)
•A rhyming dictionary—Who knew there was such a thing? But there is, and my dad has one! It was dusty and made me sneeze so I also needed . . .
•Tissues—For the sneezes.
•A book of Shakespeare’s sonnets, for inspiration—My dad has one of these, too. Also dusty. Need more tissues.
•Inspiration—I’d be more inspired by Shakespeare if I understood it all the way, but I was probably not going to learn this till high school. So I needed to make my inspiration. It was a hard thing to get. There wasn’t an inspiration aisle at Target. The gel pens helped a little.
After dinner (which was some kind of Thai curry that Peter said was gross but was actually good but would definitely be fed to Dumpster the next morning because Peter is a good barometer of what other kids find gross), I announced to my family that I had to go compose a poem.
“That’s so exciting,” my dad said. “So you’re really into this school project, huh?”
“See, Piper Bell’s not so bad,” Louie said.
I was wearing a very poet-like black turtleneck—which was kind of hot since it was May in Georgia and I’d just eaten spicy food—but I gave my family my coolest look. MYSTERY!
“You’re right . . . ,” I said, trailing off a bit—MORE MYSTERY!—as I took a drink of water. (Note to sweaty self: Rethink poet look. Be the first shorts-wearing poet.) “I wonder if poetry is my new calling.” I had to give them some hint so they weren’t totally surprised when I showed up on TV winning trophies and trips to New York.
I expected some gasps of astonishment or maybe a “wow” to my admission of my new artistic way of life, but Dad just nodded and looked at Louie.
“She must get that from me,” he said. “And my writing.”
“You’ve only written one poem in your life and it had a fart joke in it,” Louie told him.
Peter laughed. “Well, Gabby is what would happen if a fart joke wrote a poem. I could write a better poem with my butt.”
“Shut up, Peter,” I said. But poetically.
“Is that a poem?” he asked.
“You’re intruding on my creative energy,” I said. Which was a new fancy way to say he was being a total bummer.
I helped myself to a few cookies because I was still waiting for inspiration to strike and I figured a sugar rush was the next best thing. I left for my room, mysteriously. Well, sort of mysteriously, because I had to help clear the table. Then, upstairs, I cleared off some space at my desk and started to write.
Well . . .
Writing might be the wrong word.
It felt like I had hundred-pound weights strapped to each of my fingers.
If I’d had inspiration, I’d know what to write about, but a lot of poems are about true love and stuff and I’m only twelve. (And do NOT have a crush on Johnny Madden and even if I did I’m certainly not about to write a poem for him and his questioning-my-every-move ways. If I had a crush, it would be a HYPOTHETICAL crush.)
I burped a little Thai-food burp and that made me think about Dumpster. So I started a poem about Dumpster.
DUMPSTER, MY FRIEND
Dogs are man’s best friend
They say, to the very end
But what about us girls?
Here’s some wisdom, in pearls
At times you have things you don’t want to eat
A weird casserole or some odd bits of meat
Well, I know a dog, his name is Dumpster
He’ll eat your strange stuff, oh yes he will, sir
He’s saved me a bunch of times
From an assortment of lunchbox crimes
I hope one day you meet him, too.
Just bring some food and he’ll love you.
I liked the poem and I knew Dumpster would like it, or would eat it, but it didn’t exactly feel like prize-winning stuff.
I tried to write one about the monkeys Diego had mentioned in his emails but, well, most of what I knew about them was the poop throwing and that really doesn’t seem like something people want to hear about.
I knew I should write about baseball. I had lots of poetic feelings about baseball, love-poem feelings. But if I did that, wouldn’t it just prove that I should stop all this poetry stuff and go back to baseball (which I would, eventually, just not now)? I couldn’t keep completely overhauling my life, and even if I missed playing baseball, the team I could play for, the Penguins, didn’t miss me. So I could write about baseball later, once I’d mastered the art form. Feeling barfy was just part of the process, right?? The creative process. Of not creating . . .
And writing this instead. Because every letter of every word is so hard to think of that it seems like I’m INVENTING the alphabet from scratch.
Okay, I stopped for a while to do my algebra homework and it felt so good to just solve problems that had answers that I started to think about changing my talent to math. But, I don’t know, I am good at it but not exactly a whiz. And it isn’t really something people want to see on TV.
Keep going, Gabby! I’m talking to myself in the pages of my playbook. This may not be a positive development. It’s 10:30. I’m so tired . . .
It’s 1:47! A.M.! Huh?
There’s sleep-drool under the neck of my turtleneck. There’s no poem on these pages. I’m going to take poetic license and not write and call today a win anyway. Poetic license. ’Cause I’m so tired.
WINS: 5
LOSSES: 8
ALL-TIME GREATS
Shakespeare (William Shakespeare but he’s famous enough to go by one name), aka the Bard of Avon
Age: Dead
From: England
Known for: Being a poet, playwright, and some say the greatest writer in the English language
Odd fact: Even though kids like me think of Shakespeare as “fancy,” when he was alive, everyone went to see his plays, like they were superhero movies or something.
Cool thing he wrote: “Our doubts are traitors / And make us lose the good we oft might win / By fearing to attempt.” (Which means, believe in yourself and try new things! Like being a poet.)
TO BE A BARD—IT’S HARD
Goal: Still to have a worthy finished poem! Come on, inspiration!
Action: I honestly am starting to wonder how I’m going to do this. Seek inspiration, I guess?
Post-Day Analysis:
May 10
Is it just me, or were these plays simpler when I just wanted to get on the baseball team? It’s hard to know where to start with some of this stuff. It would have been nice if poetry was for sure in my blood, but who can tell these things? I’m definitely not going to get a poetry blood test. Gross.
I started my official Poet Training Program five days ago and as of this morning was still struggling to finish a poem I felt I could share with the team. But my mysterious thing wasn’t going to work forever. While everyone else had their stuff to talk about, I had a big old nothing. When I’d been the Golden Child, I was the reason to talk.
BENEFITS OF BEING THE GOLDEN CHILD
•Solid fan base
•Total confidence
•Awareness you are pretty much perfect
•Winning at life
•Cool nickname
So today, after field hockey practice—well, “practice” because it had mostly been me running up and down the field, passing, dodging, deflecting while most everyone else just bumbled around and Coach Raddock (wrongly) shouted “Great work!” at everyone—I pulled a mysterious-poet move again and said I had to get some air to think about my next poem.
I needed inspiration desperately. Or for a finished poem to fall from the sky. I was starting to get the yips about just existing.
All the talent around me was starting to feel too close for comfort. Instead of being inspired by everyone, I was starting to fear being the weakest link. Or a JINX.
Where could I get inspiration? I walked and wondered. And, of course, I found myself at the ball field again, to do a little more staring. With longing. There was a game and a crowd—the Penguins hadn’t lost since my jinx day. Devon was on the mound. I could see the cowboy glint in her eye even from far away. (And I stayed far away, tucked behind a cluster of fans standing near the visiting team’s bleachers. I was a longing lurker.) Johnny had his head bent over the stats book. I had to make sure he didn’t see me or I’d get another speech about how I should have stayed on the team.
Baseball is so nice—three strikes, you’re out. Three outs, and the other team comes up. Nine innings, nine players on the field. It has such a great structure. It makes so much sense.
I need poetry to make sense. A blank page is scary.
Maybe that was why Shakespeare liked sonnets.
They have a form and a rhyme scheme and a STRUCTURE.
Shakespeare was basically the Babe Ruth of writing and poetry—everything he did was a home run.
Maybe the most baseball kind of poem I could write was a sonnet.
And that was what I was going to do.
An answer! At last.
I tried not to think about how I always seemed to find everything I needed when I was on a baseball field.
It was time to write a sonnet. I had inspiration. Or at least a plan. I’d turned poetry into a play.
WINS: 6
(having a plan is as good as a win at this point!)
LOSSES: 8
THE SONNET IN MY BONNET
Goal: Write a sonnet worthy of the talent showcase.
Action: Write my very first sonnet and have it be good enough to want to read it in front of hundreds of people. Or tens of people. How many people would be watching this thing? Thousands. Had to be.
Post-Day Analysis:
May 13
It would have been really great if sonnets were easier to figure out, like baseball. But after reading a bunch, I just knew they had fourteen lines and a set rhyme scheme. Shakespeare liked to rhyme his in the middle of lines, with something called iambic pentameter, but that was kind of advanced and scared me.
I was going to stick with my version, where the end of each line goes with the rhyme scheme. I’d like to see Shakespeare throw a perfect slider his first time on the mound.
Field hockey practice broke early today, because we have another game tomorrow. We’ve lost a lot of games. All the games. It isn’t even worth thinking about or I get queasy.
I was never going to save this team on the field. I had to count on the talent showcase and things were heating up. It wasn’t that far away.
Instead of the pregame yoga session, Coach Raddock said we could take the hour to work on our talent showcase acts. She paired us off with partners. “It’s time for some artistic talent exchange, people,” she said, sounding way more coach-like than when she was coaching us to play field hockey.
I got paired with Katy. Yup, the most talented of the talent squad, and me. The so-far-unproductive poet. Maybe she’d just want to practice her dance moves and I could get out of having to try to write in front of her.
But she linked arms with me and said, “Let’s just sit under that tree. I write better outside. Don’t you?”
“Sure.” I nodded. I didn’t write better anywhere. That I knew of. Maybe the tree would drop a sonnet into my lap. And of course she pulled a magnificent, thick songbook out of her bag.
I pulled out a mostly empty spiral-bound notebook.
Katy: Well, I’m super-jels. Fresh notebooks are the best.
Me: Yeah, I need to work on some new material.
(In-My-Head Me: I need ANY material.)
Katy: Hook me up with a rhyme: Back in the day, I was five, it was dope. Seven years pass, I’m twelve and . . .
Me: I’ve got a whole different scope?
Katy: Oooh, you’re good!!
Up until she said that, I had just a few scribbles for my sonnet, but Katy telling me I was good was huge. So was watching her cross things out and move things around and say things aloud to herself.
I realized I’d been trying to write a poem in one big rush, instead of little by little.
I started to fill in my blank spaces, helping Katy here and there with rhymes. I also let my mind wander, like I’d wandered yesterday, and I wound up—yeah, on a baseball field. A metaphorical one. Where I was the ball.
I was pretty proud to have used a few old-timey-sounding words. Who knew that I could grow my vocabulary so fast? Being done with the poem felt good. But I wasn’t sure that the poem itself WAS any good.
Bob: I can’t believe it. She’s written an acceptable poem!
Judy: A sonnet, no less!
Bob: Is this really it? The numbers have been going in her favor, and she’s close. Is Gabby Garcia resuming her life winning streak?
Judy: Gee, Bob, I hope so. I really don’t want to witness any more bummer plays.
Judy wasn’t being very nice. My plays hadn’t been total bummers, even if I was getting a little loose with what I called a win. But since Judy was me, I kind of understood.
Katy peeked over the top of my page. “You gonna read that?”
“It needs to sink in,” I said, trying to cover it up. What would Katy think of all the old-timey words? Were they lame? I didn’t think so but I didn’t have a lot to go on. If the only poem I had was silly, and Katy had a massive, intimidating songbook, would it just show the team I was a fraud? “Shakespeare always waited a day to read his stuff out loud.”
Katy squinted at me. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I thought about saying “poetic license” but instead I said, “It sounded good, though, right?”
Katy cracked up laughing. “G, I’m glad you’re on the team.”
I was, too.
WINS: 7
(a definite win!—and that’s, what, four in a row!!)
LOSSES: 8
READ ALOUD FOR A CROWD
Goal: Take my poetry career to the next level.
Action: Read my poem aloud for the talent squad.
Post-Day Analysis:
May 14
After I got home yesterday, my poem was burning a hole in my notebook. Not really; that’s kind of a different way of saying this expression my parents use when I have spending money, that it’s burning a hole in my pocket. (But wouldn’t the money burn up first? Come on, guys.)
I read it and read it and read it and maybe it was all the reading but I thought it was pretty good. Good enough to share.
So today, when lunch period arrived, instead of just plopping down in my usual seat, I stayed standing as some of the squad sat down. I was shifting from foot to foot because I was so excited but also nervous to be sharing my work.
“Do you have to pee, Gabby?” Sophia cocked her head to one side to study me.
“No!” I kind of yelled it, in the way someone who had to go pee probably would. But it was just nerves. I pulled my folded-up poem pages from my back pocket. “I just—I think I have my talent show poem.”
“The one you were working on yesterday, G?” Katy asked. She turned to everyone. “She wouldn’t let me see it. Said
Shakespeare always made things sit a day.”
Molly made a squinty face. “That’s not true, is it?”
Katy and I shared a glance and cracked up. “Nah,” Katy said, “but it sounds like it could be, and Shakes would like that, right, G?” I liked that we had a private joke.
“Shakes? You guys are nuts,” Molly said, seeming very big-sistery. “Read your poem, Gabby.”
Everyone else nodded and put down their sandwiches. I had the full attention of my audience.
So I started to read.
When I pitch, I try to keep my focus on the plate and not the stands. It can be tempting to look, but really, when you’re at the center of the field, you know eyes are on you. You don’t have to witness them.
Reading a poem is different because your audience is right in front of your face. Mine was really close to my face, in fact, since I was standing a few feet away. So I could see every expression they made.
They looked . . . serious.
I thought for a second that it was because they didn’t like it. But then I realized that my eyes were misting over—especially when I read that line, “If I’m not there, I’m not sure who I am.” Like the baseball in my poem.
They were definitely a captive audience. I just hoped they didn’t worry too much about my emotional state. I didn’t have time for drama with a win streak starting.
I was maybe a bit too loud, because Mario Salamida, walking past on his way to the garbage can, said, “What is that garbage, Gaggy? Guess you can take the Luther Polluter out of the school, but you can’t take the pollution out of the person.”
I hated hearing that name again, but at least he didn’t throw up in the garbage can.
And it doesn’t matter what Mario thinks.
I doth did an excellent job, METHINKS.
When I was done, no one said anything for a few seconds. They were all nodding slowly, letting my words wash over them. That had to be it. There’s no way a poem that had brewed so long couldn’t be good.
Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook Page 11
