Spawning Pool
Poetry Chapbook “POWER”
Spring 2025
Shippensburg University
SpawningPool is a literary arts chapbook published at Shippensburg University by a small and dedicated team of undergraduate students. It is composed of pieces submitted by undergraduate students of the university.
SpawningPool accepts rolling submissions throughout the year and we publish our chapbook every spring semester.SpawningPool is a publication of TheReflector , which also accepts submissions year-round, and is compiled each fall semester.
Contact us: spawningpool@ship.edu
Submissions and inquires: reflect@ship.edu
Spawning Pool Poetry Chapbook, Spring 2025
Text set in Iskoola Pota
Printed by Shippensburg University
Layout by Tomi May and Emily Brewer
Cover Design by Tomi May
Poetry Editors
Tomi May
Emily Brewer
Poetry Committee Member
Penny Wentz
Letter from the Editors
Dear Reader,
It is with great joy, we write to you. With so much hope and gratitude, we look at these pages of powerful written expression. We are so honored to have worked so closely on this book with such wonderful writers, creators, and thinkers, throughout this journey. It is with deep love and care, we have tended to this book’s creation, and we are more than excited to share such intense, passionate, and raw work with you all. The great poet and novelist Margaret Atwood once said, “A word after a word after a word is power.” Our mission with this spawning pool chapbook is to expand the boundaries of power, and what that means to students on our campus,
through the means of poetry, written verse; and that is exactly what we’ve achieved with the immense help of our friends and classmates, willing to share the vulnerable, most powerful identities, definitions, and emotions of their everyday lives. And we could not be more thankful for that.
So, without further ado, I will allow the poetry to speak for itself. Thank you all so much for reading.
Tomi May and Emily Brewer
Table of Contents
Jean Stinchfield
Caylynn Felton
Elise Converse
HOW TO WRITE POETRY
to be a poet, you must hold onto your mother’s breath
recall the way it rose and fell
look under the couch cushions and pay with change
drive in complete silence
pick at that blemish until it is raw and bloodied
think about your third grade teacher
hold the last sip of every drink in your mouth for 30 seconds
wave at little kids on the train
sit at the bottom of a pool
write down the names of those who died too young
pray, even if you forgot how
you must watch, and watch, and care, and remember
gently brush the hair of a corpse
(make sure it doesn’t get in her eyes)
wash your hands three times
forget your glasses at home
take overnight flights and worry about blood clots and aneurysms and spend your nights on WebMD
call her when you get home, even if she’s sleeping
forgive your father
read until you can’t swallow another word oversleep
kiss her after eating, taste the meal on her lips let your plants wither
go outside in the winter with just a t-shirt
split an orange with friends and write, please write
love, forgive, remember, consider, search, hope, grieve, and watch
Taking Matters into Her Own Hands
She waited in the same dim light corner, Twenty years,
In hopes that someone would save her, as society told her so.
Within the endless torment of her life,
The destructive thoughts swirling in her mind,
She sits,
Punishing herself for all the invisible mistakes she was convinced came from her own doing. She is still waiting there,
Now pondering the wasted years,
Because she knows she is no damsel in distress.
She begins to stand tall,
Determination burning like wildfire in her icy blue eyes,
She is tired of being told what to do or how to think,
No longer waiting to be whisked away.
Realizing she needs to take matters into her own hands,
Afterall, if she wants change, She will have to do it herself. She will take back her power. And she will succeed.
Hailie Grenner
His Chase for Valhalla
In the chest of a man, beats a steady drum, like the roar of a cold wind from the north, firm and dense, like an ancient oak, his feelings are strength, a warrior in form.
The love he carries is steel in its core, forged in battles, in flames ever so bright, his passion’s a longship, that braves crashing waves, sailing through seas with edacious might. His sorrow’s thunder in shadowed skies, a cry that breaks through the silence stark, like a wolf howling in nights of ice, wild and deep, but still holding its spark.
The courage that flows in his burning veins, is that of a Viking who raises his blade, unshaken by storms or rivers that rise, for his heart is the true battlefield. Like a giant from the lands of old, he stands, unbreakable, without doubt or disguise, and though his soul may weep, or life bends his spine, in his chest, a Viking still fiercely survives.
Jake Smith
Reclamation
My joy is rendered bitter bile, the light within is snuffed
The love of life is set aside, the love of self rebuffed
From time to time, I tear away, and find myself quite free
If dignity is decadence, a glutton I will be
You did not feel for me
You did not feel for me
When my body lay sectioned, dying of thirst
You did not give me water
You placed your warships
Near my harbors
When I was like a fish
Staring down the barrel of your gun
You did not feel for me
When my bones lay broken and bruised, You choose to dissect my surgeons
And nurses
When my children died without purpose I prayed to Allah
That my youth be ushered out of Gaza
But You did not feel for me
When I sob out the most solemn tears
For Wadea Al Fayoume
A six year old boy
Away from the killing field
But stuck in chiraq
He and his mom could not Evade your attack
He was stabbed 26 times
His mother 34
43,000 dead
You said “Eh, what’s two more”
How could you EVER feel for me
You ignored war crimes
Righteous Israeli lives
Are more important
Than ours could ever be My young son is dead
But you did not feel for me
So I am done
With your politics, Your treaties, and laws
You’ll break them
No matter the time or the cause
I will not take
Your bombings, Your air raids
Or pleas
From your blood-soaked tyrant
Of your people’s release
We need not
Your pity, your sympathy
Or greed
Why would we
From someone who CAN NOT feel for me
That Woman
This poem is dedicated
To a younger me
For when this poem was wrote
I felt your bones crack
And it took 3 1⁄2 years to breathe life Into the husk you once called a body
Each time I read this poem
I kiss the page it was wrote on Because someone
Must mourn for you
I met a woman the other day She walked past for a moment Then stopped to meet my gaze
I slowly raised a question To her warm eyes
And stubble pecked face “Who are you?”
Her soft cheeks plumped As her pillowy lips
Formed a smile and spoke
“I am a woman my dear,
A woman who played football And ran with boys
Far my senior
A woman who’s curly hair Flows in the wind
With culture and pride
I am an Hembra Whose crude voice And crass demeanor
Needs no excuse or interpretation
I am a Chica
Who thrives
In the sands of San Juan
Tall and Tan and Young and Lovely I am the girl from Ipanema
I am Karmen
With a K so elegant And powerful
It knocks down walls Of hubris and hate
I am san diego
A woman who travels A woman who loves A woman of mystery And of fate
I am Alicea
Like Nora before me And Lydia before her
I am the women in my bloodline Who’s radiant smile
And warm embrace
Grace all within my presence
I am a woman Who’s lips whisper Sweet nothings And who’s hips tell Wonderful truths
I am everything you want
And nothing you can’t attain
I am the truth
And you cannot lie
I am perfection
And you’ll be me until you die
My dear does that answer your inquiry” She says to me
And I reply
“In a way my fair lady And now i’ll bid goodbye” I open the Medicine cabinet
And start my day on high
SELF DEFENSE
And as you sit between my legs, won’t you allow me the pleasure of your story? Why you squeeze my thigh like a trigger, and picture me with my brains as plaster?
What about the way I suppress curves in my jeans wear my buttons on the right cut my own hair smudge on my makeup sit down on the toilet
chose another name crafts a fist from your tender grip? Your extremities creeping up to my extremity.
Doesmytiefasten upintoanoose?
Domyscissorstouch
togetheratyourthroat?
Doesmyeyelinerpoint apinatyourcornea?
Doesmynamepour apoisononyourtongue?
Good. I hope it does.
And as I let you below my belt, I will allow you the prayer for a lesser punishment. But, I promise, the knife before my biological altar knows no mercy.
Daniel Brouse
Leaking
The cold plastic warms under my skin
Just a few seconds of humiliation
Loud pouring echoes through the room
This could have been victorious
Lording over the porcelain
Marking my domain
Raining my reign over the world
Over bushes, trees, and logs
On porches, doors, and flowerpots
On walls, fences, and statues
I cover up my shameful lack
It’s better to have a worm than to be a worm
But who am I to question God?
Anonymous
An Abecedarian on Women
According to a book written by a man, a man created man and then decided that he needed women too, except man seems to have forgotten that we’re of the same flesh; governing our bodies with the hostility of someone who thinks they know what it’s like and we’re imagining a world in which we just ARE, but for now we’re just kicking and screaming living in a world that’s not ours making do but we were created naked and that’s all we are to them
offering ourselves and pouring ourselves out until we’re empty and it’s quite dismal, really, that we have to pretend to be satisfied in this place that twists and dissects us until we’re variants of who we were before and we’re woman scorned and we pretend to be xenial yelling until we’re hoarse in the throat, just simply zealous to redefine “woman”.
Kacey Sollenberger
dead birds make me cry but butches are so beautiful
i know both deserve a heaven the body of a bird and the shoulder i fell on maybe they’d keep each other company the claw wailing below my foot
and the rattling carabiner against cornflower denim
feathers splatter on the ground
buzz cuts and cracked beaks
my nail clippings wash into the drain
i’d kiss the back of all your hands and when i get home i’ll remember each as i pull pieces of crunched claw from the sole of my shoe.
blessed be the dead bird and thank god for the butches may the dykes be with you.
God? in the Garden
I.
Weeds pulled from around the tomato plant don’t believe in god (I asked).
Ifheavenisforreal, they whisper, wearein hell aren‘t we?
But,whatdidwedo,except grow,except bestrong excepttryandtryandtry.
II. The tomato themselves worship a god, but not theGod , capital “g.” godisinthedirt, they whisper,keepme rooted letmegrowanddiecloseby . But,whatdidwedo, tobepluckedand eaten leavemebymygod,inthedirt.
III. The worms only believe during summer, when hands pull them From dirt, and throw them back. godissecondchancing,they whisper,whycani growback ifnotforsomekindofreligion? But,whypullmeupandthrow medown?What test isthis,anddidi pass?
IV.
The hands that pull them up do believe in god, theGod who grows the tomatoes.
Godprovides , they whisper, fruitsof labor sweetblessingsofgrace.
But,ifGodgrewthese, whyaremy nails cakedindirt,cakedinworms.
V.
The garden itself holds service on Sundays a chapel of vines and weed roots. thisisreallyEden,it whispers andifallwe cando isnurture,provide,that’senough. But, canwenurture?Ifwe pullfromtheearth,what isitthatweleavebehind?
Lou James
Self-Portrait as a Weed
Girl in the dirt, barefoot toes dug into moist soil. Rained earlier, rained a downpour so short but so delicious.
Girl in the dirt, fingernails caked deep and wet, fingerprints indenting soil where she sits.
Girl in dirt, knees aching, I can feel the tremble through my shallow roots, and echo that separates the soil.
Girl in dirt seeks to dig me out; won’t be hard in this weather. Thin green body primed for easy pulling, excavation by natural law.
Girl in dirt, pulling and plucking at brothers and sisters.
Girl in dirt given authority out here, in the dirt, sitting where brothers and sisters were sitting moments ago.
Girl in dirt digs herself into dirt. With the rain, she is a weed. She is sprouting into green skin.
Girl in dirt scoops around the tomato plants, careful to leave behind what is supposed to stay.
Girl in dirt plays fisherman, fishing earthworms from roots, once uprooted. No need to provide nutrients. No need to keep rooted.
Girl in dirt, thumbprint in soil, connected to roots, feels her veins in a plant-way. A planted girl in dirt.
Girl in dirt hears silent pleas of savemeand leavemebeandIbelongheretooand moves her thumb from the dirt. Her thumbs sit wet and brown, from dirt, and stained green, from weeding.
Girl in dirt sits back an photosynthesizes with me, the sun peeking through the clouded sky.
Girl in dirt feels sorry for me. A sorry fool about to die.
Girl in dirt hums softly into the wind, the moist soil suckles it into my veins.
Girl in dirt pulls at the root, her root, or mine?
Not sure, this girl in dirt made mine.
False Gods
Never allow your worth to be determined By Anybody
Outside of yourself
The opportunity to take advantage Of your weakness Becomes apparent to your false god To Him
The temptation is too inviting
This god is too perfect He Is too pristine to do wrong You believe it
And everyone else will too
Being lured into a snake pit
By Your false god
By Him
Is not your fault,
But it will feel like it
You are giving this Person
Giving him
Too much power
Take back your life
Alyssa Sheriff
Glued by separation
Towers of separateness surround the showers of people who laugh and cry and dance. Their lives a mixture of feelings are impeccably separate. Somebody’s mother was late on her journey to visit their own mother, and somebody’s subway left without them. Despair climbs into their bones, and they feel it relentlessly. Between spaces, there’s room to grow. Momentous greens sprout out of the earth in hopes that they’ll be seen, but they’re plowed for cement to mask itself as growth. Real life is paused for a winding door, and it revolves ever so slightly for new showers of people whose bones are infiltrated. The cement inches closer and closer to another cement, and they glue together. The mother who met with her mother became glued to the one who missed their subway on a dinner date. The grass that was
plowed was planted in front of the cement, and it glued itself to the other side of the road full of other greens. The showers of people entered through the same winding door, and they realized that they were never separate. They were always one.
Reagan Gardenhour
Real Red; Real Shit
Sometimes when my eyes get real red, I go pick up my real bitch Abby. She gets her eyes real fuckin’ red too.
We drive over to the real creek and look at all the real-life shit, wonder if the tadpoles wallow in sadness as they lose their tails, the same way we did when we lost our little girl charm.
We sit on a real rock, on a real bank, talking about real shit.
My cheeks stained with real streaks, the real salt in my tears evident. Its real you need to drink water. And it’s real that she gets my eyes real fucking red again.
We look past the creek at our real world. She has to get her eyes really fucking red again, seeing that type of real shit. When my eyes get really fucking red, I go sit on my real porch alone.
My grandma made me this wreath, a real fall wreath, bright oranges and blues- some real tacky shit.
But it’s so big and so real. I open the door, and it hits my real arm and makes a real scratch. And my real red eyes send me in a spiral.
Then I’m back to thinking about my real shit, calling my grandma about my real shit.
She’s asking me if I’m getting real red in the eyes again, and to stop doing that real fucking dumb shit.
I sit on a real chair, on a real porch, thinking about some real fucking shit.
One day the camera lens won’t pause and wait for grandma.
We won’t leave a hole open in the middle, and the real camera will click without a halt.
My real big ass familyhugging, smiling, being real authentic and shit, and I’ll have to get my eyes real fucking red seeing that type of shit.
When I’m lying in bed, getting my eyes real fucking red and shit, and I can’t sleep because I’m stuck, thinking about all my real fucking shit, I dial up my realest bitch Abby. Cause’ she knows how to keep my eyes real fucking red and shit.
To: the woman crying next to me on bus 37
Ever worn your fuck me pumps and gotten too drunk to be his saturday lay. Stood at the top of a building and looked down, wondered if you’d die. Your friends commented on the view from above.
Flipped a pillow again and again in the bed you now sleep in alone, searching for the cold parts between the seams. Wrote the note and ripped it to shreds, when you heard mom call your name. Grieved on the beach, mid july, as the plastic from some kids sandwich last week wrapped your toes.
Bled through your new pink lace thong, because google
told you that drinking jell-o would let you get fucked by some man you don’t love. Left the man you do love, spread your legs for the ones that you couldn’t.
Thought about how your mother’s imminent death will leave you gutted forever. Put back the green dress, your color, for the blue, his.
I see I know and I feel- you, I am you.
To the girl crying next to me on bus 37, I hope you know,
I really love your fuck me pumps, got the same ones in storage.
Caylynn Felton
The Art of Shutting the Fuck Up
How pretty lips look when shut
Glossed pink and full, unmoving
Thin black line of courage
Thin black line of loaded gun
Firing off accounts of crimes
War, bloodshed, blame
The tongue a different story
Ugly, writhing, muscular evil
An attack on propaganda
Cut it out, hang it on the wall
A trophy, a victory, a sentence
Unfathomable terror put to bed
I’ll lock away my manuscript
Sealed tight, key swallowed
And set on the safe on fire
This is the art of shutting the fuck up.
Elise Converse
I Hope You Know…
I hope you know you are still worshiped. Not a night passes without your apparition in my head.
I hope you know I’m haunted by the ghost of you.
Your voice echoes in my head, your shadow lingers in the spaces we once called ours.
I hope you know I return to Eden– the first place we met.
I go there to remember where it all began; when we were first made.
I hope you know I ache in the memories of the pain we inflicted.
Two forces, drawn together by fate, never knowing if we were each other’s salvation or ruin.
I hope you know of your divinity and how celestial you are.
I praise you from this space below and heed the news of your endless ascension.
I hope you know when you deemed me unworthy, you exiled me from the sky above.
An order bestowed on me that you won’t overturn.
Yet still–
I hope you know I’ll wait an eternal life for a crack in your conviction.
You hypnotize my masochistic nature and I relish in your silence.
I hope you know if you but command me to appear at the altar,
I will entwine your being with mine, sinking into the ether once again.
I hope you know that deep within these fallen ruins, these hieroglyphs and ancient artifacts confined my being to when we reign over all.
I hope you know that even as time corrodes us to myths, our legend will endure, whispering through valleys, waiting to be worshiped again.
Jason Chatell
ONE CERTAINTY
We once dwelled, dwelled in dark dank caves.
Upon the cold, slimy stone, we etched, etched into the earth. Stories of old, tales of past, ancient decrees and lore. With sloped skulls, sun-kissed skin, and simple souls, we etched.
From beasts of the hunt, to constellations of the heavens. From myths of the mouth, to day-by-day duties. Our words, our pictures, our stories; they echoed across the eons.
Keenan Demmer
Muse;ums
This summer, I snuck out a number of times Got in my car and changed as I drove
Makeup in the mirrors, hair styled by the open window
Met up with someone I felt like loving, looking lovely
And went to learn, to teach, to observe I am conflicted, a jumbled mess Collections spilling over, things that should not be there
That have no right to be there, that should be where they belong
Which is not in my eyes, not in my heart
A history, a newness, an experience of awe and awful
Stand me in front of your namesake, in front of my history
Stand me in front of your loves, in front of you I fit so well
Hear me talk on the things I learned, talk to not only you
Hear me talk to children, to the child I once was
Sit me down on the park bench, sit and stay
I saw art, saw history, saw animals, saw science
Saw so many exhibits closed because they should have never been opened
Is it even right for me to walk through the open exhibits Is it even right for me to exhibit my heart
Is it even right for me to be here, I did not ask
Peace, let you stop my mouth, my rambles on all I see
With three words, loved and love, past and present Scare me, Thrill me, Fill me with sorrow of days long gone by
Of words said too fast, too late, within months, after years
Still as a statue, a painting, a mannequin
There is a statue, a stelé, of a womangirl who looks like me
Hecate’s crossroads there in that moment, death and life
When the woman is gone, and her culture has been wiped out
What right do we have to keep on living in the ignorance of
Displaced lives, displaced loves, the minutiae of millenniums
You love the depictions of boats, of overlarge sails and voyages
These journeys on painted, etched seas, with frozen wrath
My heart is that ship, captured in the moment before capsize
Which of us is the siren, who holds the truth that will drown the other?
You desire a journey, you are on a journey, you are taking me with you
Maria Gizas
Hope afterEmilyDickinson
In every heart, hope whispers gently. It is the light that soars, the promise we hold. The thing that lifts our spirits with wings of soft feathers.
Charles Herrick
Acknowledgements
First, we would like to thank all of the amazing writers we have here at Shippensburg University. This book would not have been possible without all of these powerful poems by these brilliant poets. Keep writing and letting your voices be heard.
Next, we want to thank our Executive Board. Thank you for all of the support you have provided throughout this process. Your commitment to this club is what allows it to thrive and provides a place in which students can share their work.
Thank you to our committee members. Your input in narrowing down a topic made this book possible, and we could not be happier with how it has turned out.
Thank you to Kim Hess and helping us to make our vision a reality. For both of us, this was our first time putting a book together and you helped in making it a simple and enjoyable process. Thank you for helping our dreams come true.
Finally, we would like to thank Professor Connelly, the advisor of The Reflector, and the English Department. Thank you for your dedication to this publication and our club. Thank you for continually advocating for the arts and keeping our programs alive.
