Two Poems: A Special Place and Literary Questions by Pete Ippel 1996
I found these pieces while digging through my childhood archives here in Illinois. In the process of packing and sorting. I have to be ready to fly back to California tomorrow morning. Here’s a few introspective gems. Enjoy.
A Special Place
I have a special place in my head,
where only memories dwell.
The manila folders I draw out each have importance pertaining to my life.
Some are pleasant,
others tear at my heart strings.
But, one particular folder,
RELATIONSHIPS,
stands alone.
There is only one piece of paper in that folder.
The memories on that white sheet of paper pulp reveal a side
of me I had never seen.
The side of a caring person,
capable of feeling a broken heart.
That folder will remain locked in my filing cabinet forever.
Literary Questions
Did the ancient writers before
me have problems
with grammar?
Did they worry about
embarrassing misspellings?
Was illiteracy a problem?
Of course not.
Since no one could read their ideas any way,
authors before me had it easy.
For a writer, a construction worker with words,
ignorance of the reader is bliss.
Published by Pete Ippel
Pete Ippel, the son of a dancer and a musician, was born in Oak Park, Illinois and has been surrounded by the arts since birth. He moved to Morris, Illinois in 1989 and started to participate in athletics rather than dance. After high school, Pete attended Cornell University where he received a BA in psychology and a BFA in photo / digital art making. He continued to follow his sporting dreams in the high jump, which culminated in a school record leap of 7 feet 1/2 inch in 2001.
In May 2004 he attained an MFA degree in the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute. Presently Pete is a practicing artist whose work is in numerous private collections and has been exhibited in New York, California, and internationally.
Mr. Ippel resides in Working Artists Ventura, a sustainable artist community in southern California. In addition, he teaches art, is a web developer, an active blogger, and still high jumps from time to time.
As a passionate problem solver and a pragmatic optimist, Pete’s art and his life are full of exciting challenges.
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Anyone care to share some of their poetry from high school?
Anyone care to share some of their poetry from high school?