The members of Exclusive Ink wasted no time filling up our first board full of awesomeness, so we are now on Money Board, No. 2. Here are the freshest phrases from the minds of Shortridge students (note: the last half are from an exercise where we gave everyone a newspaper and had blacking out words to form a poem):

“We done been through a lot of heartache, no need for excuses / Not one scar on my body, but I still suffer from bruises”

“Watching down on her, his angel wings are now her cover scapegoat / She wears her son’s pride and love, a strong perfume doused in her coat”

“A remembered echo, residue of the event”

“Her body is a test that all men drive and die to perfect”

“Minutes announce pumpin’ fists”

“I’ve got to put the fun back in charity”

“Spirit breaking anger with a chance”

“Troops are scheduled to gallop in October, overwhelming Republicans”

“John McCain killed on the rebound, and Obama said, despite previous predictions, “I’m going in 2012”

“To start a conversation is one of the two things we don’t talk about”

“Today you are listening to classical prison records”

“Kim says Google click cash flow”

Courtesy of the newly named Exclusive Ink Shortridge creative writing group:

“The girls I call my sisters will always be on Twitter / They remind me of brown sugar in my apple pie”

“The carbonated enrichment of onomatopoeia” [Poem about the word pop]

“Last time I checked, Santa wore Timberlands like Daddy”

“Wicker baskets full of justice / The old china bickers with the pieces of who we are”

“I hear voices of phantom peers at night / I am dead because I thought my lover was”

“I promise I won’t lie / If I lift you off your feet, you will surely fly”

“I’ll be the perfect angle I have the potential to be / You won’t have to worry as long as you set me free”

“Coco puffs, hot puffs / Criminals walking out in handcuffs” [Poem about Walmart]

As part of the Literary Journal/Creative Writing group, we’ve created a Money Board for the students to help share and immortalize their “money” lines, the moments of inspiration that, quite frankly, we would have been proud to come up with ourselves. There is no shortage of intellectual and insightful teenagers at Shortridge. We’re thrilled to be able to help shape their always-expanding minds.

Here are some sample lines of poetry from the Money Board, based on an exercise we led the group through last week where each student wrote about the various objects our tutors brought in, ranging from a picture of Batman to a cat statue:

“I stretch out my feelings / I come alive”

“I am Buddha / A silhouette of a duck”

“When I slide on your finger, a puppet I could have been”

“I’m 20/20 clear like a pair of glasses / so call me a cat with four eyes”

“The sun and the moon are jealous / I broke their hearts”

“My whiskers still move / While the sound of my roar still grooves”

“I’m in a darker hole than an old smoker’s pipe”