It’s 3:45 in the afternoon, and Travis Kaupp is picking at the eraser end
of his No. 2 pencil, covering his white shirt — mandatory dress for the young
poet and his fellow students — in shreds of dirty pink.
Kaupp and his English teacher, Steve Abee, are seated in an otherwise empty Room
146, discussing their twice-weekly lunchtime writers group — started by Abee 10
years ago to create an artists’ community for his students — and the poem that
won Kaupp first place in this year’s Thomas Starr King Middle School Poetry Slam.
Temporarily titled “Oh Lord,” the poem is a first-person lament on life in public
school’s seventh-grade society, filled with snarky commentary on the hypocrisy
of schoolyard stereotypes, including his own, the ugliness of modern-day tween
courtship and shallow ideals of love and conformity. Written in a burst of inspiration
and mercurial methodology, with a borrowed pen on a paper menu at Charlie’s Coffee
Shop at the Farmers Market, “Oh Lord” indicates a future for Kaupp as an artist.
Yet Kaupp, who rejected the 10 other poems he wrote this year as “shallow, not
as deep as they should be,” brushes off any mention of the title of “writer,”
though the 13-year-old does admit that there was something different about this
poem.
“I started writing it, and I thought, ‘This is gonna be great.’ It wasn’t as shallow
as the other ones.”
Have you heard any comparisons to Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl”? Do you know that poem?

“Yeah . . .”
Kaupp, who has a penchant for graphic novels and Dan Brown, adjusts his black-rimmed
prescription Ray-Bans and corrects himself: “That was a different Howl,
the werewolf movie.”

How ’bout you, Mr. Abee, does it remind you of “Howl”?
“It does have that cranky, world-gone-bananas [thing] . . . it’s a great piece.”
Travis, what was your inspiration?

“These people were pushing and shoving in the lunch line at school; I was really
angry that day. Then, what really set it off was when I saw my little brother
pretending to smoke with one of those little gum cigarettes. That made me really
angry . . . It’s just so sad.”

Mr. Abee, what did you think when you first heard it?

“You don’t get a lot of middle-school pieces talking about the anger of middle
school in such an articulate way, looking at the chaos you have to deal with.
There’s a lot going on I didn’t see the first time I read it. The really great
business with stereotypes. A lot of kids are self-referential, but [Travis] stepped
out of the box.”

What made you start writing, Travis?

“Mostly hearing other people’s poems. I thought, ‘I could do this.’ And it’s a
good way to get out my emotions.”

Do you like listening to other writers?

“Are you kidding me??? I love all of their poems. To be honest with you, I don’t
even like it when people call me a poet. ’Cause I only produced one thing that’s
good.”

Will you talk about the “notion of love” you mention in your poem?

“What I was saying was, well, maybe a boy is being shallow and just likes [a girl]
for her looks. He doesn’t really love her. He just wants her as a possession,
as opposed to someone who actually likes someone for who they are and wants them
as a friend.”

Is that what you meant: “my idea of love”?

“ ‘My idea of love’ is what I mentioned before, about wanting someone as a friend.”
Are you, as you say in your poem, a teacher’s pet?

“It depends.”

In your poem you tell someone to “screw off.” Have you ever taken a stand in the
cafeteria? Have you ever told someone to go screw themselves?

“No. I’m not that brave. I am very, very sarcastic. All the time.”

Is that because you are so disgusted with so many things you see?

“Part that, and part that I like to laugh at the jokes I make.”

Have you ever had your heart broken?

“Yes.”

Can you tell me about it?

“Sure. I was at orchestra at my old school, and I asked somebody out and they
said no. But that wasn’t the end for them, they decided to also insult me, and
her friend was cackling, so I’ve managed to stay away from love for a while now.”

How would you describe Travis, Mr. Abee?

“I would say I find him to be a very sensitive, compassionate, loving heart frustrated
by the world. I think a broken heart is an indication of a full heart. The way
he listens to other people’s work, it takes a heart to really listen to other
people’s work.”

Anything else inspired you lately, Travis? Have you seen anything beautiful?

“For a poem like that one, it’s more inspiration when something negative happens,
a bad event . . . or a string of bad events. You have a higher reaction to something
that is bad than to something that is good. Like if a brick hits you on the head.”

Oh Lord

Oh Lord! Society is truly crumbling like the powder of the gum cigarette my
little brother is “smoking.” The sight makes me sick. I went into a line a couple
days ago. People were pushing and shoving. Kids were cursing and making racist
remarks upon other races and religions. If you even mention the slightest racist
remark on their race or religion they will chatter in a language you can’t understand
and then they will make a hollow threats. 12 year olds are doing perverted things
like pressing and groping the behind of a girl while he grins at his buddies
and gives them the thumbs up. When she tells them to stop they tell her off
in profanities. The profanities are so sick that I still have the bad flavor
on my tongue from these words. It’s a horrific flavor. People holding hands
saying “I love you” while the boy doesn’t give a crap about the girl. All they
want is something beyond love . . . or my idea of it. Kids begin to beat up
a boy that is to slow to defend himself. Another kid has the Nazi symbol all
over him and he makes fun of Jews. He’s a Mexican with black hair and brown
eyes. His ignorance must feel like bliss. I tell him to kiss himself and he
gives me the same dumbfounded look you see on a dog when it has pissed on the
floor. I see a kid talking about how people stereotype him, even though he acts
like the stereotype. He created the stereotype. I think of my own stereotype.
The boy who does everything right. The teacher’s pet. The nerd. Even teachers
follow this stereotype of me. It makes me want to vomit. I see a kid who is
moping about how he is lonely, even though he had turned down all the kids who
wanted to be his friend. Across the room there is a Goth that says that she
is a rebel, an outcast, a non-conformist. Then she walks over to her friends
who are wearing the same clothes that she is wearing. I walk outside to see
a girl passing out “Save the World! Stop littering” pamphlets. The wind blows
the stack away and she makes no attempt to pick them up. A boy that is always
wearing a cross makes a joke about Jesus. A thousand children bound to be the
murderers, rapists and psychopaths of tomorrow.

—Travis Kaupp, 13

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