"Hoods" by Paul B. Janeczko

Poem Visual

By Lauren Mundinger

This poem is about bullying, and the race of getting away.

My visual shows a group of bullies picking on another kid. This is like the part of the poem which he describes the bullies like "crows huddled around a road kill". The gang is gathered around the main character like the crows, picking on him.

The 'gang' of bullies in the black leather hoodies

The main 'spider' who 'releases' the bullies toward the main character

Parking meter

In a position to beat up/ bully the main character

The bullies are in hoodies, to represent the title, 'hoods'. The reason the hoodies are dark was to reflect the black leather jackets they were wearing in the poem.

The main character

Theme

by Bryan Wallace

Tone and Mood

By Jasmine Deno

"Hoods" by Paul B. Janeczko has a very vivid theme that applies to peoples lives' and impacts people in many ways. The theme of this poem is to take one extra second to think so you are allowed to make the right decision. The main character does this throughout the whole poem. He thinks for a little bit longer where to run, hide, and stay. This can be applied to our lives and can change them. In the poem, he runs into the library. He takes the extra second to close the doors and ends up slowing down the gang. Doing this gives him the extra living time and for Spider to arrive. Spider saves his live and he would be dead had not he closed the door. Taking the extra second in any situation may save your live and help you make the smarter decision.

Hoods, by Paul B. Janeczko, has both a strong mood and a strong tone to help the reader feel connected to the poem. The mood of the poem is the feeling that the reader gets while reading it, while the tone is the author's attitude towards the writing. In this poem, the mood is anxious and suspenseful. The reader is nervous for the narrator as he is running from a gang. However, at the end of the poem, the reader feels relieved because the gang didn't catch the narrator. The tone of this poem is serious. The author conveys the story of the poem seriously. This poem could happen in real life and has a serious theme. The mood and tone in Hoods help the reader connect to the story and show how the author wrote the story.

Jared Lambright

Our poem, Hoods, was written by Paul B. Janeczko. He is 74 years old, from Passaic, NJ. Living in Passaic probably changed Paul's life. It is a rough town, where ideas from this poem most likely existed. One of the main ideas in this poem is bullying, which probably happened to either Paul or someone he knew from Passaic. Some of the lines also describe a gang or group of bullies, this could also be a direct correlation to Paul's childhood or teenage years.

*all information was taken from biography.jrank.org.*

Daniel Bove

Hoods

By: Paul B. Janeczko

When I was a boy, no more than 16 years old, experienced a life threatening dilemma. My family was a wealthy family and was known all throughout the city. My father was never around because of his job as the mayor, and my mom was never around to teach me any life lessons because she died a month after my birth, and the only one to take care of me was my maid, Sophia. She was basically a mom to me and always told me to do the right thing, and follow my heart and gut whenever I had a tough decision to face. Because of the amount of money my family made and my dad's occupation, I was well known, and not in a good way. Everyone in school made fun of me and called me mean names. But that wasn't even the worst part. It was the gang, Marakuru that always harassed me and followed me around. The worst was when they followed me home once and now they wrote horrid notes and slid them into my house. One night, they threw a brick through my window while I was sleeping. I could hear them screaming, "Loser! No one likes you, you're worthless! At that moment I realized that I had had enough. The next day, I saw one of the gang members steal a key out of an old lady's purse and began to open the door of her car. I looked around the corner and saw three more gang members holding the old lady back. I thought in my mind, "How pound they do such a thing?" I ran the choices I could make through my head and decided that the best way to stop this was to intervene.

"Hey losers, why don't you pick on someone your own age?!"

The member unlocking the car pulled the keys back out and shouted, "Who? All I see is a little baby." He points to me.

Filled with rage, I ran to the car, grabbed the keys from his hand, and chucked it into the nearby pond.

"What was that for?!" he screamed

"For taking things that don't belong to you." I responded.

"Why do you care, it's not even yours anyway." He stated with an angered and annoyed tone.

"Because I've had enough of your bullying and I've decided to stand up to our guys for good, you guys are poison to the city."

"Poison?! You ain't seen poison yet." He said as he punched me in the nose, causing an eruption of pain to enter my head.

All of a sudden the sound of angels ran through the air and my eyes were blinded by red and blue lights.

"Put your hands over your head and get on your knees." I could hear from a megaphone and I thanked God for this city having trustworthy and efficient police.

"I'll get you for this you little.... " his voice was cut off after having electricity flow throughout his body and he collapsed. While the cop was putting handcuffs on the other men, I turned around and I thanked the cop for saving my life.

He said," No, thank you young mister. We have been searching for this guy for months and If someone didn't hear your screaming, we never would've found him or you. We thank you for your help and offer you a medal of Honor to remind you of what side you are on. Thank you and goodbye." As the cop leaves, thoughts run through my mind. If I didn't stop that man and his friends that old woman might have been dead by now and the fugitives would've escaped. I told myself, "I am happy that I made this choice and not run away in fear."

From the corner table of the reference room

I watched them

pacing,

head turning every time the door opened,

pacing,

until Spider arrived

to draw them away.

I waited, fingering hearts,

initials carved into the table,

grinning as I heard myself telling Raymond

of my death-defying escape.

I bounded away,

used a parking meter

to whip me around the corner

past Janelli's meter

the darkened Pine Street Grille,

and the steamed windows

of Sudsy's Modern Laundromat.

I climbed-two at a time-

the granite steps

of the Free Public Library

and pushed back thick wooden doors

as the pursuing pack stopped-

sinners at the door of a church.

In blak leather jackets,

watching Spider work

the wire coat hanger

into Mrs. Koops car,

they remind me of crows

huddled around a road kill.

Startled,

They looked up,

then back

as Spider,

who nodded once, setting them free

toward me.

Hoods

by Paul B. Janeczko