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Local North Putnam student turns poet
Everyone has a hobby. For most people it involves a screen of some sort, but for others there’s still a passion for working with their hands or using their minds in their free time. Ruby Sullivan, 12-year-old sixth-grade student at North Putnam Middle School, is one of these.
Sullivan loves writing poetry, expressing her own thoughts and helping others to understand what other people might be thinking and feeling. A few weeks ago a letter from her (in cursive) and some samples of her work (all of it handwritten) found their way to my desk, and made me so very disappointed that we don’t publish poetry.
“I love literature,” Sullivan wrote to the Banner Graphic. “Especially poetry. I put my heart into my poetry .... I feel like poetry is my only outlet and talent.”
While it certainly isn’t her only talent, Sullivan does puts a good deal of thought into what and how she writes. One of the poems she sent -- “Society” -- was inspired by the upheaval in Syria, which she was learning about in her social studies class and watching on television with her grandpa.
“I don’t write a lot of sappy love poems,” Sullivan said. “It’s usually sad and recent. I write about experiences and people, things I’ve seen. I’m trying to send out a message about what’s happening to people, that other people have feelings and that they feel.”
So when an Amber Alert went out for Liberty German and Abigail Williams, the two girls recently killed in Delphi, it inspired Sullivan to write “Amber Alert”:
“Child gone missing. / Mothers are crying / Thinking their precious children are dying. / Some people are lying about where they’re spying / On the children in the park. / Catch ‘em / Snatch ‘em / After dark. The cops start searching / Thinking people are lurking / Hopefully leaving a shadow in the dimly lit streets. / Footsteps seem as loud as drum beats / ... We try so hard to prevent this / But we can’t reach the peak / That blessed place where all people are safe....”
Another interesting aspect of Sullivan’s work is that her subject matter is often “depressing,” while she herself has an open, talkative personality and an easy laugh.
“It’s kind of sad and morbid,” Jessyca South, Sullivan’s English teacher, said, “which she is the happiest person in the world, so it’s kind of the exact opposite of what I was expecting. It was great; it was good.”
Sullivan got her start with poetry several weeks ago in South’s class, while they were writing haikus and reading Edgar Allen Poe and Maya Angelou.
Not liking the constraints of a haiku (three lines with five syllables for the first and last lines and seven for the middle), Sullivan went home and wrote a free verse poem about the renewal of words and history repeating itself. And to encourage other students to share their poems, Sullivan shared hers.
Since then Sullivan has continued to write frequently, sometimes using her phone’s Notes after a sudden inspiration, but always writing them down in a little black book where she keeps all her final drafts. By now there are so many in the book that she hasn’t counted them all. She also continues sharing her work, at the request of her class.
Aside from the enjoyment the students get out of it, South said sharing in general helps to break the ice for other students.
“They all like to talk and share, which is great,” South said. “I always let them share their journals. It’s not always poems, but if they want to share I let them share. That’s why we teach poetry.”
But as much as she likes reading and writing, Sullivan said she plans to add to the ranks of female scientists by becoming a food genetics chemist. She says that’ll mean a Ph.D. in chemistry from Purdue University, but along the way she’ll get a bachelor’s degree in language and keep writing.
“I have never had one that writes the poetry without me making it an assignment,” South said. “This is my 18th year. She’s definitely a unique girl in great ways. She’s a born leader with ambition. There’s very little fear. She’s going to do some amazing things, I can tell.”