Andi
01-19-2008, 07:11 PM
Poetry helps Smithfield girls player cope
with challenge of being a teen
By Marty O'Brien/Daily Press
SMITHFIELD - The experiences come so quickly and penetrate so deeply for a teenager, they’re often hard to express. And who would you talk to about them to anyway, Smithfield High junior Brianna Robinson often asks herself.
Adults? Some, but many dismiss the teen years as easy. Peers? One or two, but otherwise you’d get more privacy by telling the Daily Press, she jokes.
So Robinson, a starting forward on the Smithfield basketball team, writes about her experiences and feelings. Poetry is her means of expression.
"Poetry is my outlet, my personal diary, a source of release for me," Robinson says. "I know the paper isn’t going to tell anybody. It always understands me."
The process, pencil on notebook, is solitary, but the paper is Robinson’s window to the world.
Her poems have been published twice nationally in Creative Communication student anthologies.
Robinson, 16, has read her poetry at a wedding, a funeral and to her teammates before games. She writes about subjects as diverse as young love, basketball, friendship, race, a neighbor’s death and the shootings at Virginia Tech.
Before discovering poetry five years ago, life was all about basketball.
Robinson says she was always the best player on her team as a little girl, and laid her head on the pillow at night dreaming of the WNBA.
When she was 10, a little boy, angered that Robinson was beating her in a footrace, pushed her to the ground from behind. She dislocated her shoulder so badly that even today she can’t extend her left arm above her head.
Multiple operations on the shoulder kept her out of basketball the next two years. She became angry and withdrawn.
Enter Kathy Jay, Robinson’s sixth-grade reading teacher at Smithfield Middle School.
"I thank God for Ms. Jay," Robinson says. "When I told her how angry I was, she encouraged me to start writing my feelings down on paper. By doing that, I discovered how much I loved poetry.
"If not for her, I would’ve went down the wrong path. I wouldn’t be playing basketball and my grades wouldn’t be good."
Says Jay: "Brianna was my bright spot. She was so enthusiastic about writing that I didn’t have to do much more than encourage her and admire her work."
A poem Robinson wrote shortly after meeting Jay is titled "Thank You, Lord."
Published in the Creative Communication 2004 Winter Anthology, it underscores her faith and the improvement in attitude as she discovered her poetry skills.
You put breath in my body, each and everyday
You allow me to live and not pass away
You allow me to move and walk through each day
I want to thank you Lord in any and every way
So if you’re young or old, poor or even rich
Thank the Lord, because he is truly a gift.
Robinson began dating a longtime friend in eighth grade. She says that the relationship lasted 2½ years before they broke up.
She and the young man are still good friends, even after they experienced the roller coaster of emotions that goes with first love.
She wrote about falling in love and breaking up in poems titled "Young Love" and "Say Goodbye."
Is it young love that has me in this very daze?
Or am I going through some teenage phase.
How am I supposed to know what love really means,
If I say I’m in love, parents you say things aren’t always as they seem
This young love is something I can’t resist
I would never have thought, but I guess I can count this as a granted wish.
I stay up at night crying tears, thinking of you,
While you’re out doing your thing not even realizing what you’re putting me through,
I thought God had placed you in my heart for a meaningful reason,
But, I’ve come to realize God sometimes places friends in your life for only one season.
"Poetry prevents anger problems," Robinson said. "When my ex-boyfriend made me mad, instead of saying, ‘I hate you, I never want to see you again or I want to blow up your house,’ I wrote my feelings down."
Robinson is focusing on her future, rather than her love life, until the day when that "special" guy comes along. Her priorities are schoolwork, poetry and basketball.
She carries a 3.4 grade point average. She’s averaging about seven points for a team that is the surprise of the Bay Rivers District.
Long one of the district’s worst girls basketball programs, Smithfield is 7-5 this season and owns an upset win over preseason favorite Poquoson. Coach Richard Pullen says Robinson is the team’s spiritual leader, the hardest worker in practice and the girl most likely to offer an encouraging word to a struggling teammate.
He adds that she has been key to the Lady Packers’ turnaround. Robinson predicted the team’s improvement in a poem she wrote early this season.
From the halftime classroom conversation
To the sideline benches motivation
Moreover the downright Lady Packers determination
We believe in our hearts and put it all on the court
Going hard, being aggressive with this competitive sport
So Southampton, Grafton, Bruton, Lafayette ya’ll too
Last year we may have been down, but this year we’re coming back 4 you.
While many of her concerns are personal, Robinson defies the stereotype of the self-obsessed teenage girl so often portrayed on shows like MTV’s "My Super Sweet 16." She read her poem "As Tomorrow Starts Without Me" at the funeral of next-door neighbor Ida Holloway. She spoke from the viewpoint of the deceased to comfort the family.
My soul is resting peacefully, surely I’ve come to let you know I’m free
I might not be in your sight, but I’ll remain in your heart
As you start tomorrow without me
Her poem "Ordinary Day, Turned" places her in the shoes of a Virginia Tech student slain in last the shootings last April.
I leave my dorm with learning in my heart and food on my mind
But there’s a feeling of discomfort, a feeling one of a kind
I walk into first block engineering class unsure of how I feel
Then there goes a knock on the door, followed by something unreal
Robinson says her goal is to start a publishing company someday. She hopes to give teen poets the opportunity to express their feelings and experiences.
What they have to say is important, after all.
"I want to inspire people, motivate them and lift them up," Robinson said. "It’s not as easy for teenagers as adults think. There are so many challenges and so many negative influences.
"But the truth is that not matter how hard it gets, God never gives us more than we can bear."
with challenge of being a teen
By Marty O'Brien/Daily Press
SMITHFIELD - The experiences come so quickly and penetrate so deeply for a teenager, they’re often hard to express. And who would you talk to about them to anyway, Smithfield High junior Brianna Robinson often asks herself.
Adults? Some, but many dismiss the teen years as easy. Peers? One or two, but otherwise you’d get more privacy by telling the Daily Press, she jokes.
So Robinson, a starting forward on the Smithfield basketball team, writes about her experiences and feelings. Poetry is her means of expression.
"Poetry is my outlet, my personal diary, a source of release for me," Robinson says. "I know the paper isn’t going to tell anybody. It always understands me."
The process, pencil on notebook, is solitary, but the paper is Robinson’s window to the world.
Her poems have been published twice nationally in Creative Communication student anthologies.
Robinson, 16, has read her poetry at a wedding, a funeral and to her teammates before games. She writes about subjects as diverse as young love, basketball, friendship, race, a neighbor’s death and the shootings at Virginia Tech.
Before discovering poetry five years ago, life was all about basketball.
Robinson says she was always the best player on her team as a little girl, and laid her head on the pillow at night dreaming of the WNBA.
When she was 10, a little boy, angered that Robinson was beating her in a footrace, pushed her to the ground from behind. She dislocated her shoulder so badly that even today she can’t extend her left arm above her head.
Multiple operations on the shoulder kept her out of basketball the next two years. She became angry and withdrawn.
Enter Kathy Jay, Robinson’s sixth-grade reading teacher at Smithfield Middle School.
"I thank God for Ms. Jay," Robinson says. "When I told her how angry I was, she encouraged me to start writing my feelings down on paper. By doing that, I discovered how much I loved poetry.
"If not for her, I would’ve went down the wrong path. I wouldn’t be playing basketball and my grades wouldn’t be good."
Says Jay: "Brianna was my bright spot. She was so enthusiastic about writing that I didn’t have to do much more than encourage her and admire her work."
A poem Robinson wrote shortly after meeting Jay is titled "Thank You, Lord."
Published in the Creative Communication 2004 Winter Anthology, it underscores her faith and the improvement in attitude as she discovered her poetry skills.
You put breath in my body, each and everyday
You allow me to live and not pass away
You allow me to move and walk through each day
I want to thank you Lord in any and every way
So if you’re young or old, poor or even rich
Thank the Lord, because he is truly a gift.
Robinson began dating a longtime friend in eighth grade. She says that the relationship lasted 2½ years before they broke up.
She and the young man are still good friends, even after they experienced the roller coaster of emotions that goes with first love.
She wrote about falling in love and breaking up in poems titled "Young Love" and "Say Goodbye."
Is it young love that has me in this very daze?
Or am I going through some teenage phase.
How am I supposed to know what love really means,
If I say I’m in love, parents you say things aren’t always as they seem
This young love is something I can’t resist
I would never have thought, but I guess I can count this as a granted wish.
I stay up at night crying tears, thinking of you,
While you’re out doing your thing not even realizing what you’re putting me through,
I thought God had placed you in my heart for a meaningful reason,
But, I’ve come to realize God sometimes places friends in your life for only one season.
"Poetry prevents anger problems," Robinson said. "When my ex-boyfriend made me mad, instead of saying, ‘I hate you, I never want to see you again or I want to blow up your house,’ I wrote my feelings down."
Robinson is focusing on her future, rather than her love life, until the day when that "special" guy comes along. Her priorities are schoolwork, poetry and basketball.
She carries a 3.4 grade point average. She’s averaging about seven points for a team that is the surprise of the Bay Rivers District.
Long one of the district’s worst girls basketball programs, Smithfield is 7-5 this season and owns an upset win over preseason favorite Poquoson. Coach Richard Pullen says Robinson is the team’s spiritual leader, the hardest worker in practice and the girl most likely to offer an encouraging word to a struggling teammate.
He adds that she has been key to the Lady Packers’ turnaround. Robinson predicted the team’s improvement in a poem she wrote early this season.
From the halftime classroom conversation
To the sideline benches motivation
Moreover the downright Lady Packers determination
We believe in our hearts and put it all on the court
Going hard, being aggressive with this competitive sport
So Southampton, Grafton, Bruton, Lafayette ya’ll too
Last year we may have been down, but this year we’re coming back 4 you.
While many of her concerns are personal, Robinson defies the stereotype of the self-obsessed teenage girl so often portrayed on shows like MTV’s "My Super Sweet 16." She read her poem "As Tomorrow Starts Without Me" at the funeral of next-door neighbor Ida Holloway. She spoke from the viewpoint of the deceased to comfort the family.
My soul is resting peacefully, surely I’ve come to let you know I’m free
I might not be in your sight, but I’ll remain in your heart
As you start tomorrow without me
Her poem "Ordinary Day, Turned" places her in the shoes of a Virginia Tech student slain in last the shootings last April.
I leave my dorm with learning in my heart and food on my mind
But there’s a feeling of discomfort, a feeling one of a kind
I walk into first block engineering class unsure of how I feel
Then there goes a knock on the door, followed by something unreal
Robinson says her goal is to start a publishing company someday. She hopes to give teen poets the opportunity to express their feelings and experiences.
What they have to say is important, after all.
"I want to inspire people, motivate them and lift them up," Robinson said. "It’s not as easy for teenagers as adults think. There are so many challenges and so many negative influences.
"But the truth is that not matter how hard it gets, God never gives us more than we can bear."