This poem came to me after a fight with my father. I've learned after years of fights that it doesn't do any good to get angry; that only makes things worse. So I would get my frustrations out on paper and that helped my head stay clear and calm. I'd seen the cup of tea in an earthquake display at the science museum in my home state, and the analogy came to me when writing this. This poem is just about what anger feels like to me.

I was walking around my college campus this last fall, through the leaves, and the smell of the leaves evoked this poem.

This poem is for those of you who realize the importance of telling your dearest friends how much they truly mean to you. I wrote this after a friend and I had a deep discussion about what love is, and since I felt strongly in my convictions, and feeling my spoken words to him were somewhat ineffective, I wrote him this poem.

I don't really know what inspired this . . . It was just after an end of a relationship, but I don't really think the poem was about that. (Those are just usually the times I end up writing . . . at the end of something. ) I just remember for the first time in my life identifying with the ancient Siren from the Odyssey. She's always thought of as an evil monster, but I've never heard anyone ask the question, "Where did she come from? What is she like? " So, in my poem, I gave her human- like qualities of perception, guilt, love, bitterness, sadness, and hope. I suppose I was trying to convey a woman accepting that the thing she wants most she will never have, so she must close her heart, and try to make the best life she can without it.