Welcome to my digital portfolio.
Here, you will find a collection of original works and reflections from my junior year at Bayside High School. Please feel free to navigate my portfolio by viewing each of the above tabs. Scroll over the "MORE..." tab to see more options. Below, you will find my interpretation of the American Dream: the central theme of this year's English curriculum. Thank you for visiting.
The American Dream
poem inspired by Walt Whitman's I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing
Copious ballads reflecting the shades of its flag And while I yearn for American progress, I remain aware of the privileged taste of the Red, White, and Blue spoon That has fed me well I see America cajoling “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” Alas, a migrant seeks education, welfare, and work To which America boisterously replies, “Go back to your own land!” I feel America insisting That diversity renders the world impervious Yet Americans are reduced to demographics - Statistical data derived from boxes In which we indicate the color of our skin Rather than the content of our character I taste America settling For half-honest politicians, for domestic poverty, For mediocre literacy rankings, For the tragic ideological flight From striving for the American dream To aiming for the American average I smell America rotting As the fruited plain industrializes into a gray-scale factory mosaic - Above which, an eagle bearing empty talons navigates the polluted skyline Starving and weary from its Pursuit of Happiness, The eagle descends while Americans hungrily protest, "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" -- Poem by Cassandra Caldwell |