Ritalin Nation
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
I’m totally going to pay attention. I’m really going to take good notes today. I hate this class. I don’t understand it. Did I really learn this stuff before? It’s like I’m gliding down a river of incoherence, of memory. Which reminds me of that song from Cats. I don’t like cats. Dogs are so much better. What is better? Isn’t “better” a construct anyway? Constructs–like stairs. Are stairs metaphorical? Or are they real? I fell down the stairs as a baby. It hurt! Why am I writing about stairs? It’s so off topic. I’m confused. Are you confused? If you could hear my thoughts, you might be confused. Where was I? Thinking about when I was a baby. Babies crawl. Is time crawling? Can time do that? What is time? Time to jam! What time is it? Time to get a watch! I should check my phone. Shoot, I can’t because I’m in class. Right, class! Notes! Oh look, I drew a cat! There’s the bell. Damn.
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Requiem for My Grandfather
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
Eleven of us, heads bowed,
standing around the wooden box:
pine, no embellishment, modest
but strong, like you.
Trapped in my throat, a sob,
tears frozen on my cheeks.
You didn’t know my name,
but your eyes lit up
when you spotted me,
your mouth splitting into a wide grin.
Did you remember the dark-haired girl
to whom you read stories a long time ago?
You didn’t speak much
and yet I felt that you wanted
me close, your eyes soft, your hand gentle
on my arm. When still healthy, you were never
this unguarded.
We picked up the casket.
The cruel Chicago wind sliced my bones
as we delivered you to the hearse.
Do the dead feel cold? I wondered.
Was it you, holding me in a frozen embrace?
Editor’s Note: Natalie Weis won the Parkmont Poetry Festival in Washington, DC, in May 2025, for “Requiem for My Grandfather.” As part of this accomplishment, the poem was printed in a booklet by the poetry festival. “Requiem for My Grandfather” is reprinted in Wordgathering with the author’s permission.
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About the Author
Natalie Weis is a rising 12th grade student at Edmund Burke School in Washington, DC and resides in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She has been published by the Louisville Review, the Blue Marble Review, the WEIGHT Journal, the Parkmont Poetry Festival, and the Live Poets Society of New Jersey. She has participated in several creative writing workshops, including the Kenyon Review‘s Young Writers Summer Residential Workshop. Natalie equally enjoys writing poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction and has been recognized by the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards in each of these categories. Besides writing, she loves the theater and visual arts and performs in as many school plays and musicals as possible.