How I Lost These Poems


In middle school, we were tasked with creating an original poetry book with one haiku, a free form, and various other types of poetry. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about other types of poems, like pantoums, and how poetry doesn’t have to necessarily rhyme. This semester in college, I anticipate to learn more about poetry.

That being said, something I learned from my introduction to creative writing class is that it is extremely fun to look back at old works. I had such joy looking back at my middle school work on the poetry book, which was titled, How These Poems Got Lost. The pieces in there are something, for sure. In this blog, I’m going to share one of the poems from that book that I’ve workshopped and fixed up. In the future, I might repost the originals and rework on the poetry book in its entirety. But for now, I hope you enjoy “How These Poems Got Lost” and the edited version, “How I Lost This Poem”.

How These Poems GOT LOST (8th Grade version)

I don’t know who ought to trust,
The lady on the beach is a lobster sunbathing,
Only if I must,
Or the man with a cap who’s eye was a telescope looking for nonsense.

When I was looking away,
I really must say,
The accomplice of the man with the cap is very quite fast.
He snuck the book away like a robber with stolen money, running away.

When I turned around, I was sad to see,
I lost these poems with no ease!
I looked high,
I looked low,
I guess I was too slow
Nearly I was not smart to know,
He had buried it into the sand!

The book was ruined,
The book wasn’t neat,
The dots stained,
Into the ocean and off it went far, far, away,

The poems got lost because of me, you see,
and this book still comes back to haunt me.

Author’s Note: It does still haunt me. I find it hilarious though that within the poem I compare a poor lady to a lobster (?) and I sound so formally informal at times. The fact that I wasn’t happy with this poem led to me fixing this poem up.


How I Lost This Poem (2022 Version)

Walking with this page in hand, set it down in the sand,
Untrustworthy glances accompanied me, before I left into the sea.
No significance to this page, rhymes that come and go with age,
But plainly, it swept someone off their feet,
As this poem was taken from me.

Diving in the ocean blue, looking for a hidden clue,
to an ancient mystery, detailed on that very page.
Clueless as a clam to the stolen book in hand,
That slithery stranger stole from me.

Came back to the sunny shores, looking for this page to see,
It got up, grew legs, and ran from me.
Confusion sprung, then terror hit;
This poem was given to me as a “temporary” gift,
And here I did misplace it.

The ocean forming in my eyes, when I noticed a disguise,
Thrown into a green bin, with this poem as the cherry on top.
No significance to the page, rhymes that came and went in a day,
But plainly, it held some importance to me, 
As I cared for it deeply.

Author’s note: Nope. Still not happy with how it turned out.


Overall, I don’t believe poetry is a strength of mine in creative writing, but it doesn’t have to be. While I don’t write as much poetry, unless it’s for a school assignment, poetry doesn’t have to be something you’re good at. If you want to express certain emotions or feelings or even just want to jot down a quick story, poetry is the best way to capture that. I’m not proud of my poetry, but it is fun to look back at, critique, and enjoy.

Hope you all enjoyed those two poems. Have a great week ahead!


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