Suzanne Cucchetti

Biographical Sketch

Suzanne Cucchetti was born in Grand Junction Colorado in 1978. She earned her degree in German and Secondary Education from Cornell College in 2000. In the same year, Suzanne moved to Greifswald, Germany on a Fullbright Fellowship and taught English. The landscape and people are the inspiration for many of her poems. After teaching German for a decade in the US, Suzanne earned her Master’s Degree in School Library and Information Literacy from the University of Colorado Denver and now works full time as a middle school librarian. Her love of books and information are the inspiration for many of her poems.

Poems

My true Love

I love books

I love reading.

In my world literature is more important than eating.

The written word is a light

I find it both charming and inspirational.

There are books about everything - both war and being non-confrontational.

Just like the movies

There are good books and bad

But what you like and what you don’t is shaped by the experiences you’ve had.

Hiking is fun

So is cooking with onion.

But reading will always be my heart’s one true companion.

Die Mutter

Sie kocht

Sie wäscht

Sie putzt

Egal wie erschöpft sie ist.

Sie hat Mitgefühl

Sie hat Mitleid

Sie hat Mitangst und Mitfreude

Und sie lässt mich alles selbst erleben.

Sie kann,

Sie will,

Sie wird

Aber am meisten liebt sie doll.

Emily Dickinson

Biographical Sketch

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in Massachusetts. She had one brother and one sister. Emily rarely went out into public, but she wrote poetry and letters nearly constantly (Krull, 49-50). She rarely shared anything with anyone and later in life, never left her house. When she died, her sister found a box full of her poems and had them published (Krull, 51).

Poems

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Personal Response

This is one of my all-time favorite poems. Many of Dickinson’s poems I can partially relate to, but with this poem every line rings true. The personification of hope being a little bitty bird is perfect – the bird is delicate but resilient. My favorite line is the fourth line: “And sings the tune without the words” – I feel like this is the perfect description of what hope is; you hope for something, but you can’t explain what or why.