Cary Academy’s own Laura Renshaw was featured this October in the News & Observer for her work in the Teen Writer’s Workshop and a poem that she wrote while working with the program. An experimental extension of the Young Writer’s Workshop, Teen Writer’s Workshop brings together thirty students excited about developing their creative communication. Mentored in a week long summer program, the students work with skilled and motivated teachers in small group settings. They are able to hear everyone’s work and give words to seemingly abstruse notions. That’s what Laura did in her poem Drop the Phone. What would life be like without the instantaneous communication that phones provide? That’s the question that Laura asks. Not only does she ask it, but she derogates from what most of us would say. Read her poem on phones and you may find yourself switching your off more often that you do now.

Drop the Phone

By Laura Renshaw

Ring, ring, ring…

Go away, Go away!

Leave me alone.

Go somewhere else to stay.

I’m not answering because I don’t want to hear. 

I want to be alone, even if you don’t, clear?

Where can I go

To leave the ringing behind forever?

So, when will I hear it again?

Never.

What if I lost my phone?

What if everyone else did, too?

What if the noise went away?

Would the world be quieter?

Would the world be better?

I can’t wait for that day.

By Kim Ray
( November 2007 Volume 5, Issue 1 )