So I’ve been sitting here for about an hour trying to figure out what I was going to do for this post. And I came up with nothing. So I was just going to give a little insight into what my life was like before coming to MSA. 

So, I’m not sure if I’ve told many people here about this, but I used to be a Military brat. Which means me and my whole family would move from state to state nearly once a year.  I’ve been everywhere from Hawaii to Newyork, and some states to the left like Kansas or Wyoming. 

Which unfortunately means I wasn’t able to many lifelong friends, since we lost touch just as quickly as we met one another. So It’s mainly just been me and my two younger siblings.  

While moving around the United States, I’ve seen some pretty interesting things, like mount Rushmore, and “Ol’ Faithful” in Wyoming. We’ve been through the smokey mountains a few times. But My Favorite place we’ve lived in West Point, New York. 

My Dad is often called to different military institutions. For instance, He worked at Camp Shelby here in MS before he retired, or Fort Leavenworth in KS.
But he was called to either teach or work at West Point for two years. 
And first of all, West Point’s buildings are amazing. I always say they look like a modern castle of sorts, and it’s even got a sort of moat. It’s almost entirely surrounded by the Hudson River.  I took a few photos of it which I’ll leave at the end. 

On West Point, for the first year, I think it was right before Covid-19, it was my entire family. Me and my siblings were enrolled in homeschool, and that was fun. But the second year, my mom and siblings moved to MS to take care of my grandfather. And My dad was constantly posted across seas, So, if possible, I wanted to stay with him so he wouldn’t feel alone.  

Anyways, My Dad and I had some fun traditions that we made while we were up there. Every Friday night we would always order “Bear Mountain Pizza” and watch “The Mandalorian”.  And since my Mom was in MS, my dad had to learn how to cook, so he ordered one of those… Box of food things that come prepped, and you just have to cook it. 

All in all, I’m glad I grew up running around the United states, I’ve gotten to see a lot of what some people might not see in their lifetime.  And now were here in MS again, for good since my Dad retired.  

So, Oolong is another one of my favorite bands, and it’s a love-hate relationship, because,
By far, out of every band I’ve researched, they’re definitely the hardest to learn anything about haha.

So for one, they only released one album, it’s fantastic, don’t get me wrong. But only one? In three-ish years? It’s a little disappointing. Also, since they’re not all that well known, with less than 500k listeners a month. They’re underrated, but then again, their music is kind of hit or miss depending on the person.

This was one of the most troublesome bands to research. For instance, it took me two days of web browsing just to find the names of the musicians. And I’m not even sure if they’re the real names. So the band members are Vinny Colardi, Scott Lang, Sam Becht Jesse Silver, and  Matt Brando.

I couldn’t find ANYTHING on Vinny Colardi or Matt Brando and every time I searched up Scott Lang, all that came up was ant man. But I did have some luck with Sam Becht, I found his Instagram and figured out that he’s a freelance drummer who played for Oolong. I’m sure with more time and more research I could maybe stalk Sam Becht’s Instagram and see if he follows anyone with similar names to those in the band, but… That’s a lot of work.

But as far as their music goes, it’s some of the best I’ve heard. They have incredible vocals and even better instrumentals. Their album is called About Your Imaginary Friend.
Honestly, I wish they had uploaded the lyrics, because it’s more than a little difficult to make out what they’re saying when the vocalist is screaming at top volume. But I don’t have a problem with it personally. 

On one hand, I think it’s nice to listen to the lyrics because they play a story, but on the other hand, I think you can get that same emotion if you listen to the voice. The raw emotion you can feel with each syllable is incredible. That’s also why I like listening to other songs from different regions of the earth. German punk is interesting, and so is Japanese rock. I can’t understand the words, but the vocals are amazing and emotional.

So in summary, I think Oolong had the potential to be one of the best, but they haven’t released anything new since 2020. But if you want, give them a try. 

So for this week’s blog, I wanted to talk about My spotify wrapped, I thought it would be fun to share some of the weird tastes I have in music. So I’ll list my top five songs that I listened to, and for how many minutes, and stuff like that.

So in order of least to greatest of my top 5

 

 #5 Fifteen Minutes – Mike Kroll

This one Wasn’t much of a surprise, I Listened to it on repeat for a while.
I mainly got into this song by playing a dating sim on my computer called Monster Prom. This song was used as the Outro to that game. 
Not to mention that Mike Kroll has been used in Steven Universe quite a bit I think. I Listened to his entire “I Hate Jazz” album, and have to say that I didn’t find many songs that I didn’t like. 

#4 Just Give Me One More Day – Alej

 

This song is amazing, I don’t think I could recommend it enough.  Its purely just piano, no vocals or anything else, but my goodness, its outstanding. I listened to this on repeat while reading “The Giver” and it just made reading that much better. I found the song on an Instagram reel, and it took me quite a while to find the name of the song, but once I found it I added it to my Playlist and have listened to it daily. 

I’ve learned that my music taste mainly consists of: Classical, Classic Rock, and Indie Rock. Other than that I just listen to podcasts. 
This next one might be a little weird so bare with me. 

#3 Theme From The Amazing Digital Circus
(Piano Version) – NPT Music

So if any of you know the Amazing Digital Circus, you might recognize this, but for those of you who don’t, “The amazing digital circus” is basically an indie short animation. I watched it a few months ago, and I really enjoyed it, and what I enjoyed more was the music, so I looked up the soundtrack, and found one that was on piano, and saved it. I recommend both the song and the animation if you haven’t seen it. 

#2 Merry Go Round of Life – Andy Morris 

So, this is another classical, pure piano, song that I’ve been obsessed with. 
Some of you may recognize it, if not, it’s from a Studio Ghibli movie called
“Howls Moving Caste” I highly recommend the movie, and the song. 
Theres not much more to say about this one. 

#1 At Dooms Gates – DOOM 64x 

I’m a huge fan of the DOOM series, I’ve watched videos explaining the lore, (but only played two of the games.) But nevertheless, Its one of my favorite games. Especially because of its soundtrack. It mainly comprises of Heavy metal Guitar and drums, but sometimes it adds a little extra. This song specifically was my favorite though. 

At the beginning of the school year, I played this song on repeat for about a week, (Not an exaggeration.) I played it over and over again. I don’t know about any of you, but with me, when I’m in a new environment I like something that I can predict. So, I guess that I just played the same song on repeat because it was something I knew. That may be a dumb way of explaining it but that’s how I made it make sense in my head.  

Anyways, to sum it all up, I’ll just leave how many songs, and how many minutes I had on Spotify this year. 

I played a total of 1,659 different songs this year, with a total of 69,303 minutes. Apparently, that’s 48 days of nonstop music.  
My most listened genre was Indie Rock, and My Most listened band, was Origami Angel which took up 4,711 minutes. It said I’m in the 0.1% fans too. 
Anyways, this year has been a big adventure in my music taste, and I hope it was for all of you Aswell. 

Okay for some reason the blogs being due, totally slipped my mind, so for this post I’m just going to share something I made last month that I worked on for a while.

I know it’s sort of an easy ticket out of my dilemma, but I really don’t have any other choice.

The title is…  A Small Poet

“A Small Poet”

 

No, thank you.

I’d rather be, a… small poet.

Yes.

A small poet isn’t left on a shelf. 

A small poet Isn’t… passed out in class,
and needs to be read by Tuesday.

A small poet, isn’t laminated for protection.

No.
A small poet doesn’t cost much more than A buck fifty. 

A small poet has dogeared pages. 

A small poet sits in the house of a single mother. 

Or the apartment of a young artist. 

A small poet, has coffee stains, and highlight marks.
A Small poet is left in a mother’s purse. 

And likes to be read on Tuesdays.
Because he’s a Tuesday person.

A small poet has torn out pages, but they aren’t missing. 

They’re stuck on the walls with tacks and tape. 

 

I’d much rather be a small poet.

This piece was inspired by one of my goals in life, It might be different than the rest, and probably not as interesting. But my goal is clearly as the poem states, I do not want to be an Emily Dickenson, 

Or an Earnest Hemmingway. I don’t want to be an Edgar Allen Poe or a Robert Frost. I don’t want to be world-renowned. When I die, I don’t want a book of my work to be handed out in class and need to be read by Monday. I want my work to be analyzed for perfection or academic reasons. I simply want it to touch the hearts of those who find it. I would so much rather my work be found in an alley behind a few boxes. Found by a person who cherishes every word.

I would much rather that, than someone who buys my book in a bookshop and leaves it on their shelf to collect dust. I don’t want my book to be protected from dust actually, I would much rather it be worn, and dog-eared, and highlighted. I would much rather my book be owned by few and cherished by few. Then Owned by many and read by few.
I guess that’s my outlook on it, and I don’t even have a book of poetry (yet) to be published. But when I do, that’s how I want it to be read. 

Anyway, I hope that’s enough for a blog. Im just finishing this as were leaving, so theres not much time to edit, so please excuse any misspellings or errors. Thank you. 

So, for my post, I wanted to share with you all the Horror Movies I watched this October, and the ones that stood out versus the ones that shouldn’t exist. I watched most of these with my roommate, and we had differing opinions of, pretty much all of them.
I’ll also be ranking them from least to greatest.

The way I’ll Score the movie is by
A: Creativity of Kills, 

B: Plot/Story

C: Characters
D: Killer

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Childs Play

I’m going to be frank, They should have stopped after the second movie. Everything after that feels like fanfiction, and I’m not exaggerating. Two of the movies feel like a “Scary movie” Parody, and if you haven’t seen any of the “Scary Movie” movies, they’re just movies making fun of the plots of the originals. 

Heck, even the names sound like titles of Fan Fiction, and I’m specifically talking about,
“Bride of Chucky” Where Chucky reunites with his long-lost girlfriend, Tiffany Valentine, and Seed of Chucky, where Chucky just… Has a kid. It’s by far the worst franchise to have sequels. But I do think they had a few good ones in there. The first and second were decent. Good plot, good characters. And the last one, Cult of Chucky, I thought that one was underrated. I thought the plot of it was better than the rest, excluding the first and second. 

So, if I’m just rating the first, second, and first Child’s Play movie.

 

Creativity of kills • 4/10

Plot/Story • 6/10

Characters • 4/10

Killer • 5/10

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Friday the 13th

I only saw the first and second movie, so I can’t say much about the entire franchise, but overall, I really liked them. They were a little slow, but the kills were impressive,
(most of them) and the killer had an interesting background. I Won’t go into detail about any of these movies to avoid spoilers, but I will give a brief overview.

A group of camp counselors are looking to make some extra cash on the side, so they all go to Camp Crystal Lake. This camp is notorious for having misfortune and bad luck fall upon the campers and counselors, so it never gets much foot traffic. Days into their stay, camp counselors mysteriously go missing, or are found dead in the woods, or in their very own cabin. 

One problem I did have with these movies was the pacing. It felt very prolonged. It took a while for the climax of the story to arrive. 

I’ve heard that the franchise of Friday the 13th gets really out of hand, and I think in the 10th one The Killer goes to space, so I’ll probably stop after the fourth. But from the two movies I have seen, the first and second, I thought they were pretty good. Overrated for sure, but I’d watch them again on Halloween.

So, for the rating, 

 

Creativity of kills • 7/10

Plot/Story • 8/10

Characters 4/10

Killer • 8/10

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Ring

This movie was pretty good. And just for clarification, I’m talking about the 2002 American, The Ring, not to be confused with the Japanese Ringu They’re the same movie but made at different times. Although both movies follow nearly the same plot. The original, the most movies stem from is the Japanese version.

Anyway, I liked The Ring. The story was really interesting, and the characters were pretty deeply made.

The movie follows a female reporter who hears of a strange death of a high school girl. She investigates further to find out that a rumor of a mysterious tape is the cause of death. After watching the tape your phone rings, and a woman on the other end says, “Seven Days,” Then hangs up.

The story was really interesting, and the movie has been adapted seven times into different movies or TV shows and fun fact, The Ring was based on a novel by Koji Suzuki. I’m definitely going to be checking that one out.

Creativity of kills • 8/10 

Plot/Story • 7/10

Characters 7/10

Killer • 10/10

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Scream

 After watching the first movie I was obsessed, and that was only a year or two ago. Surprisingly I only watched the first one those years ago, and only recently did I finish the series. In total, there were six Scream movies. Each adds a new spin to the franchise.  Overall, Scream 1, is by far my favorite. The plot, and characters, ending. It was all so amazing. It’s at the top of my list of favorite horror movies.

In the Scream franchise, most often, it follows our protagonist Sidney Prescott being harassed and chased by a Scooby-Doo-looking killer, although he may seem cartoon-like with his costume, I assure you he is no joke. And by he, I mean Ghost Face. Ghost Face is a serial killer who stalks and preys upon his victims, making sure they die in agony as well as confusion and fear. He toys with his victims before making them meet their untimely demise. As for the rating of the Scream franchise, I might be a little biased. Oh, and to clarify, this rating is for the first Scream. 

The creativity of Kills • 9/10

Plot/Story • 8/10

Characters • 9/10

Killer • 10/10

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

 

Anyways, I apologize for the length of this post, but thanks for reading. I hope that this inspires someone to start watching more 80-90’s slashers. It’s by far my favorite type of movie genre and deserves more respect. 

So, I’m sure a lot of you write Figure Poetry, or whatever it’s called where you write a poem that looks like what it’s describing. Well for this week’s post, I wanted to share a tip, or a time saver if you will, that could help with whatever you’re trying to write your poem as. 

Below is an example of what I’ve written before using this trick.

This poem is about how the moon. She wishes she would be pulled down into the arms of her lover. The way I got the figure of the poem was really simple and I’ll explain the process in just a few steps.  By the way, I forgot to mention that this is for Google Docs. I’m not sure how to do it for other typing programs. 

 

So first. You’ll want to decide what you want your poem to resemble. 

For instance, I chose a simple shape, the moon.
(More complex shapes may be harder to write). 

Once you’ve picked your idea, go to Google or some other search engine and look up images of that.

Once you’ve found your perfect image, drag it to your desktop on your computer from the search engine. Your image should now be on your desktop home screen. 

From there, you open Google Docs and create a new document.
Drag the image you selected earlier onto the new document. 

 

Once you have your image on your new document, you’ll click the image, outlining it in a blue rectangle, bringing up a few options near the bottom of the picture. Among the options you will see a Behind text option. You’ll click that first. (This puts the image behind the words which  you’ll be typing later)

Then once You’ve applied that option, you’ll go back and click the three dots option that was just beside it. A group of options will appear, you’ll click on the Adjustments Option, (second to last.) Then a bar will slide out from the right-hand side of your screen.

A number of sliding bars will appear, you’ll want to focus on the Opacity section. 

Bring the opacity slider to the left, (this affects the image visibility.) Make sure the image is just barely visible.  Then you’ll click off the adjustments area and begin writing. It will take a few tries to get the wording perfectly aligned with the barely visible image, but it will work eventually.
You’ll have to use space, enter, and tab, to get on the right lines.

Once you’ve finished writing your masterpiece, simply click the image, and either drag it off the piece of paper, or click backspace on your keyboard to delete it.   

And there you go, a perfect figure poem.  I hope this helps! 

I apologize in advance for another band recommendation post. I did this one last minute and I’ve been wanting to do this band for a while. 

McCafferty, founded by Nick Hartkop, is another Indie-Rock band that I’m obsessed with. They are somewhat notorious for breaking up though. Through my research I could never find a specific number, but I know for sure that they’ve gone through over two or three breakups, maybe more. 

With Nick Hartkop as the Guitarist. And fun fact most of their early songs were don’t by Nick with an acoustic guitar. I’m pretty sure he’s using more electric now, but he was really good on the acoustic. 

And I think it’s cool that his best friend and wife Emily Hartkop is on the bass. Throughout all the breakups of this band the two people who never left were Nick and Emily. 

McCafferty’s album Beachboy has to be one of my favorite albums they’ve released. Nick is the vocalist in every one of their songs, to the best of my knowledge, And I love his lyrics. Their style seems unique and new. But over all their albums the same voice with the same emotions stays the same. Which I really enjoy. Nick’s voice is perfect for what he’s singing. While researching this band, I could never find proof of who writes the lyrics of the band, but I’m more than sure its Nick.  

Beachboy has over 10 songs, lasting exactly 29m and 9s. I can’t stress how meaningful the lyrics for his songs are. They all seem like personal stories, and I think that’s what makes them so extraordinary. In my opinion, the best types of song come from personal experiences of Growing up, grief and friends.
And that’s exactly what McCafferty sings about in almost every song. 

This album is just, amazing. There are about 33 songs on this playlist lasting over, 1 hour 36 minutes. And the lyrics for this album are really good. But this isn’t the album that hits the hardest. I’ll get to that in a moment. I forgot to mention but that little number under the album, the (26/33) that’s the rank, The way I rank albums is the total of liked songs over the total amount of songs.

Now lets get to the most meaningful album they’ve released. 
With a total of just 8 songs. stretching just under 30 minutes. 
One of their recent albums. 

This album is one of the most emotional in my opinion. 
There’s a song that really hits home with me which is “Yours, Mine, Hours.”
Personally, one of my favorite songs. (I have a long list of Favorite things)
If you plan on checking out the song the part at the time stamp 2:00-3:00 is something that hits hard, I don’t have the words to explain it the best I can, but it’s just some amazing lyrics. 
But this album is really amazing, if you were to check out any of these albums, I’d recommend this one.  (or the beachboy album)

Overall McCafferty is a homerun. One of my top three bands, and I’d Highly Recommend them. And I apologize for doing another band post. I’ll try and think of something different for next week’s post. Keep it new. 
Or not because I’ve been wanting to do a post about another band I’ve had in mind, called “Violent Dawn”. They’re a small band with less than 100 listeners a month. So, I wanted to give them what little publicity I can give them.

 

 

FULL CREDIT goes to Channel Hand for the idea of this post. 
I read her post last week and I really liked it, so I wanted to make one similar.

So, my favorite songs on my playlist. This was a hard topic because I have over 5h 58m of time on this playlist, with over 200 songs. So, it was hard choosing only a few. But starting from the least favorite to the most favorite here they are. 

So, while going through my playlist, I found over thirty songs that I love. It hurt, but I didn’t want to make this post an hour long to read, so I’ve regrettably narrowed it down to about 8 out of 30 songs. I apologize ahead of time for how long this post might take. 

(P.S. I’ve left out Origami Angel in this list because They would dominate.) 

Starting with #8: “DNA Scam” “Fail Better, Heal Faster”

Next in Line is #7 is “At Doom’s Gate” “Andrey Avkhimovich”

This one is interesting because, it’s from a popular game called “DOOM 64x”.
There are no lyrics it’s just instrumental metal. A while back I got into a loop with this song, and I listened to it for my first two or three weeks here at MSA. 
I’m a big fan of the DOOM games. The music is always intense too. It’s pretty much all “Final Boss” music. 

 

Coming up next as #6 is “Blueberry Pancakes” by “The Feelers”.

This song is pretty interesting. It’s a little higher on the list because I really enjoy the Instruments in this song. Not to mention that the album cover is really cool. The Vocalist has a really cool voice, aswell. This song is sort of crude if you listen to the lyrics, but other than that it’s really good. The lyrics are interesting to say the least.  I won’t spend too much time on this one because I’ve got a lot of songs to get through. 

The next song #5 “Cytoplasm” by “The Doozers”.

This song was really good, it came out in Jan 12th, 2019.
The thing I like most about this song is the guitar. The Vocalist has a nice voice, Aswell. The lyrics are decent Aswell.  I added this song to my playlist back in 2020 I think, so I’ve been listening to it for a while now. The cover is also sort of funny. I’m not very familiar with the band though. I think this is the only song I’ve heard from the Doozers. 

 

This song is really good, it came out in Jan 12th, 2019.
The thing I like most about this song is the guitar. The Vocalist has a nice voice, and the lyrics are decent as well.   now. The cover is also sort of funny. I’m not very familiar with the band though.

The Next song being #4 is “Mystery Girl” “Housecall.” 

I really enjoy this song every time it comes on. I feel like I’m saying this for every song on this list, but the instruments and vocals are really impressive. For most indie-rock songs I’d say that drums are a very important part. In this song, the drums are faint but there. The bass is fairly noticeable, but I think it relies heavily on the guitar and vocalist. And that’s not a problem because they do it so well. Romantic Indie-rock songs are the best, because they always (or most of the time) come from the heart. They’re always meaningful. And I like to imagine who the artist wrote the song for. 

Next in line as #3 “2010″ by “The Keystones” 

The Keystones are an interesting band. I’ve listened to a few of their songs, and I want to become more familiar with them, but this is one of my favorites. I’m not a good guitarist, I’m quite the opposite, but this song inspired a little thing I came up with on my electric guitar. I’ve had this song on my playlist for at least two years, I think. And that’s why it places 3rd on my list. I think that the album cover seems funny, it looks like a Polaroid, and I think that was supposed to emphasize the “2010” feeling. But this song is so high on the list because of its guitar and drums. In my opinion, I think Guitar, Drums, and Bass, are the three elements that make up an Indie-Rock band. And each of those elements are in this song. The drums are amazing. 
The Vocalist in this is also really good. 

 

Two more to go. Coming up as #2 “Punk Tactics” by “Joey Valence & Brae”

I really like “Punk Tactics” for a number of reasons. Mainly because of the vocals, the lyrics are interesting, but the way the lyrics are expressed are really impressive. The tune is pretty good. My favorite part of the song is around 1:50-2:05.  Again, I’m not very familiar with many of their other songs, but this one is really good, and I recommend checking it out. 

 

And finally, my favorite song on my playlist (Excluding a certain band) 
#1 is Mike Krol’s song “Fifteen Minutes.” 

Now, I haven’t been familiar with some of the other albums of the other artists before in this list, I just liked a certain song they had produced. But Mike Krol is one I know well.
“Fifteen Minutes” is part of the “I Hate Jazz” Album released in 2011. some of the songs in this album have been in a few different things. “Fifteen Minutes” was in a dating sim game I like called “Monster Prom”, Thats where I first heard of this song. Some of you may have watched Steven universe as a kid, if you have, you may recognize his song “Like a Star” It was in season 4 episode 6 of steven universe. The lyrics in this song really pack a punch, The guitar and drums, are a chef’s kiss, and the other instruments pull everything together. 

(If were excluding a certain band) Then this is by far my favorite song on my playlist. This was a tie for “Seventeen (Age)” Also by Mike Krol. Both of them are really good. 

 

Thank you, for taking time out of your day to read a random list of songs, 
And if you want to check any of these out, the one I recommend the most, (the one I think most people would like) you should check out “Mystery Girl” by “Housecall.” 

 

My day is somewhat, very repeatable. It’s almost a relief that I can expect something to be the 

same. Because in most cases the only constant is change. But there are a few things that I would like to share. Things that tend to repeat themselves in my everyday mornings. 

For starters, I’m sure mostly everyone wakes up at the same time every morning. That’s a given. But every morning, I always wake up  and meet my neighboring Suitemate in the bathroom. And we always brush our teeth at the same time. Which is around 7:05. After that I get dressed. Then go through my usual morning routine. 

 

I’ll go downstairs and sign in, then I’ll walk to this bench, where I sit every morning. Right outside the entrance to the JI. There are two benches there. I sit on the far left one. On the very left side. Every time. And while I sit in the same spot, at the same time, every morning. I notice small things, repeating idiosyncrasies of the world. Every morning, the same elderly lady, with pepper colored hair crosses the crosswalk. At around 7:30 or later. However, She doesn’t always go in the same direction. Some mornings cross from the right side of the street to the left. And other mornings she crosses from the right to the left. I’ve always wondered what she does. And I forgot to mention that she always walks with both her arms behind her back. One holding onto the other. 

 

The next repeating variable in my morning is the 207 bus that comes to the stop sign every morning. It comes every time from 7:38-7:42. (That’s the earliest and latest I’ve seen.)

I can never tell if it has the same bus driver though. And it never has any kids on it. I assume it’s just dropped them off. Or has yet to pick them up. But seeing as it’s already near 7:40, I don’t see how it could pick anyone up and then drop them off before 8. So, I’ll assume that it’s just dropped them off.
(You can’t tell very easily from this photo, but that white piece of paper says 207.)

The next repeating part of my day is after the first block. During that short break between block 1 and block 2. I read in the same spot every day. Well, I used to read by the stairs. I’d sit in one of the chairs in front of the dance area. And I’d read whatever book I was reading at the time. But a week or so ago, the chairs disappeared. So instead I sit in front of the Writing lab room. 

 

There’s something relieving about some things staying the same. I know that things will change.
I know all about change. I don’t think I stayed in the same state for longer than a year while my dad was in the military. Now he’s retired, and we live in Mississippi for good. But while my dad was in the military, we moved around a total of ten times. From Mississippi to New York. I made a lot of friends throughout those years. But I only ever met two friends I’m still in contact with today. 

 

Not to say that I didn’t like moving. I loved visiting new states, and the car rides, and the people, and the culture. But I’m finally glad we can stay in the same house for longer than a year now.

So, I’ve struggled with finding a topic to write about this week. I had a ton of ideas, but this one stuck out the most. 
In this post, I’ll be talking about my all-time favorite
young adult American poet, Trev Cimenski.

I First discovered Trev Cimenski about a year or two ago, on Instagram. I heard this soft yet intimidating voice, and the words just spoke to me. At the time I didn’t really follow random people on Instagram, so I passed his account without much thought. But a few days later I came across the same person reading another wonderfully written poem. And I was intrigued. So, I went through his posts, and became obsessed over his work. 
And then when I heard that he had a book released, and another one on the way, I immediately bought the first copy. I read it twice in once night. It was really amazing. 

Trev Cimenski’s book ‘Orangutan Teeth’ was published August 25th, 2022. A relatively recent publication. This book has many amazing poems. I’ve certainly dog eared at least half of them.

There are so many things in this book that I would recommend. I don’t remember the name of it verbatim, but my favorite poem from this book has to be the Years poem. (I think that’s the name) 
It talks about how Years are wasted on calendars, and young people wish they were old and old people wish they were young, and how it’s all just a useless cycle of envy.

I Think that the name of the book is hilariously intriguing, ‘Orangutan Teeth.’ It would only make sense if you got to the poem about Olives Teeth, which (I think) is the first poem in the book.  And another interesting fact about this book is that all the illustrations are by Trev Cimenski himself. Which I very much admire.

 

Somewhat Small is another poetry book written by Trev Cimenski, it was released in this past July. I’m actually lucky enough to own a signed copy of this book. I was so excited when it came in the mail. 
This book is filled to the brim with dozens of poems, and I have to say that my favorite is ‘The World’s Greatest Piano Player’.  It’s really amazing, and it talks about childhood wishes, and realizations as an adult. 
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many illustrations in this book as the previous one. I’m not sure as to the reason, but I do miss the little squiggly fellas. 
I debated for such a long time on
whether or not I wanted to highlight
or dog ear pages, because on one hand some things in the book were really inspiring, but on the other hand I didn’t want to harm this book in any way.  I eventually decided on leaving it as it is, and maybe dog earing a page or two.

So, I’ve Talked about the books he’s released, but what makes them so brilliant?
And the answer to that, is how insanely deep these somewhat simple poems are. Trev Cimenski, writes poetry about the smallest of things, 
Teeth, Houses, Pianos, Nephews and Nieces. And makes them into this philosophical concept, that really makes you reflect. And something even more impressive is when he talks about serious things. Like death, age, years, love.



What I’m trying to say is that, in my opinion, I think that his work is brilliant. And I love re-reading his work over and over again. For the past year or so he’s been a huge inspiration for me. 
I think that’s why I’ll always love small town poets more than world renowned poets. I know it’s silly, but it seems more personal when its someone who isn’t as widely known.

And if anyone ever wants to borrow one of his books from me, feel free to ask. 
I would love to share his work with other people.

* I apologize for how rushed and short this post is, other than the two books. And his media accounts, I could hardly find any information about him. 
So, I just wrote what I knew about Him. *