Vampires in Poetry

[Marguerite Girardeau]

As Meg sat down in English Lit, she felt excited to learn some more English, at least, that's what she hoped to learn in here. Seeing the three pieces of paper on the table, she glanced at them curiously, but felt herself deflate in disappointment as she realized they would be talking about vampires. Vampires, of all things it had to be those! Meg didn't hate much, but truly she didn't like vampires at all. The girls in her ballet class had always been talking about vampire this and werewolf that, and she had found herself growing thoroughly annoyed as movie after movie came out on the subject. Perhaps she should have expected it though, after all America was where Twilight had originated from. If people thought the English book was bad, it was worse in French. it wasn't even called Twilight there, it was called 'Fascination'. 

Listen to some of the students read the poems, and then hearing that she'd have to write one of them in a poem journal of some kind, she decided to just suck it up and get through it. It was just a poem, they weren't even that long. And she could pick the one that was just barely about vampires, maybe she'd just pick the one that had the word in it the least amount of times. Yes, that sounded like the best plan of action. Resting her cheek in her hand, she half-listened as the poems were read, and hoped that next class they would be talking about something that wasn't stupid. 

[Deleted]

Shailie fixed her white and black polka dotted blouse in the mirror, then pushed open the bathroom door. She'd spent the time in between her two classes in the bathroom on the phone with her one good friend from Maine about school life so far. Finding classes wasn't too hard for her so she didn't worry about having to leave early to get to class on time. One thing she had learned from school was that waiting until class was about to start was the best time to get go, because the halls were pretty much cleared anyway.

She walked into the classroom quietly, though English was by far her favourite class by far, taking a seat towards the back of the classroom. Before class started she looked at the board and smiled. This was going to be the perfect class for her. Vampires in Poetry sounded like absolute heaven to her. Sure, are they real? No, but they're perfect muse.

While the teacher was talking, Shay read the poems to herself, searching for any symbolism or allusions in the poems. Instead of just going on to do her own thing, she listened to the three volunteers read, waiting for someone to screw up the pronunciation. She wasn't all too impressed with the boy who had tried to make the second poem humorous, but just rolled her eyes and continued to listen. Unfortunately, they all did fairly well with the words so she had no real entertainment and wished that she had studied the poems a bit more, rather than listening to the boys read.

[Deleted]

She sat comfortably in her seat in the very front, listening intently as the boys read the poem. The girls all seemed to have a look that said, "seriously..." but Callie couldn't relate. She absolutely loved the Twilight series, though she had to admit the book were much better, and the Vampire Diaries were her favorite television show of all time. Maybe she just wasn't with all the 'in' do's and don'ts, but she didn't mind at all. At least reading about vampires was better than the brain crushing geometry she had just gotten done with. Math was not her favorite.

Callie twirled her pencil in her hand as she thought about her fatal mistake of the class period. She should have chosen a seat towards the back, that way she could scope out future friends, enemies, and those of the sort. Callie was fresh meat, and her first day wasn't going as terribly as she might have thought, but it was only the beginning of the day, and she wasn't ready to turn the day upside down. She let out a heavy sigh, wishing she could look around the classroom without making it obvious that she was practically judging everyone. It killed her to know that she wouldn't be able to use this class period as an opportunity...

[Richard Stone]

Richard was about to start picking out volunteers when the poems were read out. He was a little amused by the visual, if not verbal, reactions to the poems, and it was easy to see that more than half the class was not impressed with his choice of topics.

"Thank you, gentlemen." He said once the last poem was read by one of the newer students. "Ok, there is a reason I picked these poems out, and it's not for my overwhelming love of the mysteries behind vampire-lore. The poems are full of metaphors and stories behind the words. So, pretty much it's about uncovering what's written behind the words." He grinned as he set up the laptop on his desk to play the power point slideshow he had there ready to go, and while it was playing he picked up a pile of papers. "Don't stress out, I have a hardcopy version of the slideshow." He also picked up a small tape recorder.

He handed out the stapled collection of papers to each of the students "You will find the work I want you to do inside the papers I'm handing out. If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to ask. It's not a silent project, so feel free to discuss your ideas with the person sitting next to you if you, and they, would like." He spoke as he approached Rachel's table, so that the girl would know that he was approaching, and pulled the chair from the empty table next to her closer. "I have a tape recorder here with the poems and the information from the slideshow that's scrolling across the board at the front of the room. I can also give it to you on a flash drive so you can listen to it on your computer if that makes things easier." He fell silent for a moment. "Come and have a word with me after class and we can discuss a way for you to do the journal thing." It was obvious that the blind girl wouldn't be able to keep a diary like the other students, but he had an idea of another way for her to be able to do it.

[Cortney Smit]

Cortney sat lower in her seat as three students read out the poems, she silently begged that they weren't starting a topic on vamipres in fiction, because she might just have to start a protest if they were, and being a cheerleader, she had a voice that would be heard for miles.

She picked up the stapled papers that were placed on her desk and paid more attention to them then she did the slideshow, which was moving slow enough so that she could have read the entire page if she had wanted to before it flicked to the next.

Opening her class binder, she dated and titled the top of the page and then began to work through the assigned work, trying to get through it as quickly as possible. If anything, she could use this class to work out some new cheers. Or anything that didn't have anything to do with vampires!

Another thing she would need to do was work out the next poem that was going to go in her journal, because heaven forbid that she might have to stoop so low as to put one of these poems in there. She would need to think about it more later, right now she was annoyed with the class.

[Othello Buskirk]

Leo's head was pounding and he took a sip from his drink bottle. He tried to concentrate on what the students were reading, but between his head and the constant buzzing in his ears, he just couldn't concentrate on much, and he doodled on his page instead.

He glanced up with a small smile as the papers were placed on his desk and he looked through the staple pages. He knew that he should start working through the papers but it was just easier to doodle at the moment, as that took no real thought and his pencil could just move at random. There was one thing with how he was feeling though, it actually allowed him to hear what was behind the words, and he could tell that the poems weren't about vampires at all, they were about other things. After all, vampires were a pretty recent thing, not something that would have been the craze that they are now, around the times the poems were written.

With a sigh, he took another sip from his drink bottle and wondered if he should go and see the nurse when class was over and see about spending the rest of the day in bed. He didn't like skipping class, but it was pointless being in class when he couldn't concentrate.

[Elizabeth Toman]

Libby's nose drew up in a curl as three boys volunteered to read the poems. She shot daggers at Finn, she had thought more of him until now, and then turned back to the front of the room.

She gave a dramatic groan as Mr Stone placed a staple set of papers onto her table, and her groan grew as she looked at all of them, though she refused to look at the whiteboard, as she didn't want to even look slightly interested in the topic. Though now she was wondering if she should, since the cheer-chick behind her seemed as displeased about the topic as her, and she didn't want to be in agreement with the older girl in anything, though with this she wasn't going to change her mind.

She flipped through the pages, knowing that she would need to do the work. She wasn't going to chance Coach having any reason to kick her off the team because she let her grades drop, though she was sure that she would pull a pretty good case if that did happen.

With an exaggerated whimper, she picked up her pen and started working through the rubbish that was in the handout.

[Fionn Paquet]

Finn didn't miss the murderous look that was fired in his direction by his fellow gymnast and he gave her a smile, though he knew that it wouldn't change her new opinion of him, and really, he didn't care.

He was glad when two others read the other poems, because he may have felt obliged to have done it if no one else had. At least it would save Mr Stone from having to call on people.

He read through the information that was coming up on the whiteboard, which was working as a screen for the power point, and thanked the teacher as papers were placed on his table. He nodded his head as he read, being able to see what it said about the poems.

Opening his folder, he picked up his pen and began to jot down his thoughts on each of the poems and then began to work through the assigned work in the handout. He was enjoying this lesson, he just hoped that it would be the end of the vampires... unless of course Mr Stone was going to get them to read Dracula, he just wasn't interested in reading Twilight, and from the reaction of most of the class, he didn't think they wanted that either.

[Adonya van Rutherford]

Blythe was glad when students volunteered to read the poems, because it meant that she wouldn't have to do it. It had turned into quite a large class, but that didn't really matter. As long as there were enough idiots to read aloud for Mr. Stone, the rest were superfluous, but they weren't in her way.

Wen the teacher started the powerpoint, Blythe considered getting out her notebook, but then heard that they would have a paper printout. That would settle that. She leaned back to watch the powerpoint as Mr. Stone spoke, and took the paper packet as it was offered to her.

Flipping through it, she found the work that they were supposed to be doing easily, and reached down for her backpack after all. After pulling out her notebook, she flipped it open to a new page and began writing, occasionally going back to the handout to make some notes about ideas that she wanted to handle later in the assignment.

As she worked, she found herself actually enjoying working out the similarities between the stupid bloodsuckers, although she still didn't want to keep looking at more of the literature surrounding them. Each of the writers had imagined the beasts in different ways, which was interesting, and made for plenty of material for her essay.

[Deleted]

Vampires, they were quite interesting until they became romanticised by more modern literature as well the movie industry. Sam tried her best to focus in the lesson, flicking through the handout. She happened to be very grateful for it as it saved her from either having to write, her hand writing was beyond awful or get her laptop out to type as Mr Stone spoke. She sat towards the back of the class, hoping that there she would not get picked to read out. Samantha still did not feel settled fully so she lacked the confidence to stand up and then speak to her classmates.

Fortune seemed to favour her however as three boys volunteered to read out the poems, volunteering as a tribute almost. A small smile appeared on her face, she would not have been happy to go out and read in front of the class. Samantha glanced around, her blue eyes scanning the classroom. She attempted to recall the names of the various students she had met, sadly there were too many that she either forgot or as of yet had not met.
The fingers of her left hand messed with the hole in her jeans just above the left knee idly. It seemed to her as fast as she bought new jeans she managed to get holes in them. Samantha attempted to focus her attention, all of what was being said might prove useful when it came to the delightful task of essay writing.