American Voices Voice — Poetry DIRECTIONS: Choose a special person you know well. Using similes, metaphors and symbols, you are going to describe the person through the tangible, con- crete, sensory details that you associate with them. Describe this person as a series of objects that symbolize — or represent — them.Read“Abuelito Who" by Sandra Cisneros for an example. ABUELITO WHO Abuelito who throws coins like rain and asks who loves him who is dough and feathers who is a watch and glass of water whose hair is made of fur is too sad to come downstairs today who tells me in Spanish you are my diamond who tells me in English you are my sky whose little eyes are string can’t come out to play sleeps in his little room alll night and day who used to laugh like the letter k is sick is a doorknob tied to a sour stick is tired shut the door doesn't live here anymore is hiding underneath the bed who talks to me inside my head is blankets and spoons and big brown shoes MOTHER TO SON Well, son, t'l tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, ‘And places wiht no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time Ise been a-climbin’ on And reachin’landin's, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard Don't you fall now— For Ise stil goin honey, Ise still cimbin, And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. —Langston Hughes DIRECTIONS: For this poem you are going to invent a character (perhaps partly based on someone you know well, or perhaps invented by you). This character must give advice to another character — someone who looks up to them — and convey some life experi- ences in concrete, sensory detail to back up what they are saying. who snores up and down up and down up and down again is the rain on the roof that falls like coins asking who loves him who loves him who? —Sandra Cisneros