In Humanities/Social Studies/Language Art class, we read 3 short stories as a class. The stories were “The Last Kiss” by Ralph Fletcher, “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, and “Thank you, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes. As the assignment, we had to do a found poem, a poem created by taking words or passages from other sources and reframing them as a poem by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and by consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions of deletions. I chose “The Last Kiss” as my found poem. My poem explains the external conflict of the main character, the author Ralph Fletcher, as a little boy wanting a kiss from his father. However, the little boy is now older and can’t receive a kiss from his father. The conflict is a man vs. nature conflict because the main character is now clashing with how old he is. Him growing up is a natural process, and it conflicts the character himself, thus it is man vs. nature.

The poem goes:

My childhood had symmetry

That passed much too quickly

First

Night,

I was stunned

Next night,

I murmured

For clarification of quiet expectancy

With sinking heart

I

Formulate

Loss

This grim truth

Sunk in

I was too old

Not powerful, much more fragile

The first lines “my childhood had symmetry that passed much too quickly,” explains the theme of cherishing childhood before it is too late. Then the poem explains the two nights of the main character’s reaction getting rejected by his father. He slowly realizes “with a sinking heart,” that he was too old and not feeling “powerful” anymore. The color scheme goes first to dark green, expressing the normality of the routine of getting kissed both by the father and mother. Then the second paragraph turns into dark blue because the main character is sad and stunned that his father didn’t kiss him good night. Then it goes to blue grey, cool grey, and then black, to show the hopelessness of him realizing he will never be getting a kiss from his dad and worries when he won’t get a kiss from his mom.