Bearing Witness to the Different Styles of Teaching

I am on the last leg of my work in classrooms for this academic year, with the joy of my final two residencies being in elementary schools, predominantly with 3rd grade students. As I said in a recent post, I love 3rd graders and partially because I am really a 3rd grader in an adult body.

I have completed the first 3-day set of visits with five classes and tomorrow I start over with five new classes to initiate the process. I will shake hands with another 100+ students during the course of the day and indoctrinate them into my realm of the virtual video game, Poetry Detectives.

I also will be sharing the students with five more teachers and a number of teaching assistants. It is the teachers who show me the way to success in my work. I have learned from every teacher I have ever taught with, both those many talented educators who invite me to their rooms, and those few who demonstrate teaching in a way I will always attempt to avoid.

One thing I understand well after all these years: screaming at students as a general practice for classroom management is not a successful model. I have lost my patience occasionally while working with students and never has that been anything for which I was proud. I felt horrid, defeated, and embarrassed. I also felt very manipulated into losing control.

Recently I have been in classes with teachers who have a strong identity but a quiet presence in their rooms. In those classes, I experienced students who were attentive, listened well, and were generally very polite as well as engaged in my lessons. In those classes, I did not find myself reprimanding anyone or bordering on taking a stern tone, nor did I have to resort to any lecture on expected behaviors.

I have also been in a class or two in which the students were so used to raised voices that they no longer responded. These classes were the definitive minority but there I was. These were the classes where the students were constantly harangued for their lack of discipline, their inability to listen and respond appropriately. These were classes where the students talked constantly, even when being reprimanded for talking out of turn, they had difficulty staying in their seats, they were wired and argumentative with each other, and generally spinning through an existence that was out of touch with anything but their own impulse in the moment.

I have also been in very orderly classrooms with bright, clean surroundings, lots of positive images, and a seating layout that encourages easy movement through the room, etc. On the other hand, I have been in classes that reflect a similar chaos to that of my home office, which is shockingly crazed. Some rooms look like Charlie Brown's friend Pigpen has entered the teaching field and project a general air of confusion.

I cannot help but believe there is a direct correlation to student behavior and learning. Although every teacher I know goes through a year in which the students are supremely challenging at some point or another, in general, kids achieve when they feel safe and valued, when the environment is organized, and when the expectation that this is a place of importance is reflected. The majority of teachers I have met and worked with, and this is an astounding total, provide magnificent spaces for learning and achievement. Those who do not provide models for me of teaching styles I will do my best to avoid.

Being a Lifelong Learner

This past couple of weeks I have been in a residency with 3rd graders, 13 classes of 3rd graders, in fact. They are lively and Spring is evident in their energy levels. They are also very engaged in our work together.

I selected a new poem to use in my lesson plan, since I have worked with many of the teachers in previous years. My goal is not just to bring a reading and inference approach to the students that creates enthusiasm and understanding while building sound learning habits but to provide more resources for my host teachers.

I sought a poem that would meet the widest range of diversity with a common experience, a poem that permitted nuance in inference and connection, and that maintained an air of play, as well as strong craft of poetry and challenging language to boost essential vocabulary. My choice this time is "Skating in the Wind," by Kristin O'Connell George.

In the poem, there is a health ambiguity that leads to very animated discussion among the students around the mystery of the poem. The skater is not identified as an ice skater, or  rollerblading, or a standard roller skater. In most classes, we had even decided that it was possible that the skater was a skateboarder. The poem seemed to allow for that last interpretation, particularly since many children refer to skateboarding as skating also. 

So after a week and a half of teaching the poem, yesterday morning, one boy raises his hand to say he has made an important observation. "Ms. Popoff, I figured out that the skater can't be skateboarding." He then cited one crucial line halfway through the poem: "My skates clattered."

He went on to explain that it could not be a skateboard because a skateboard is one thing and "skates" is a plural word. Again, poet does a happy dance in delight of the student awareness. Not only that, but the student discovered a key piece of evidence that had not really occurred to me yet. He showed me something new in the poem I had not noticed, a nuance that was very significant, while he also pointed out something important to his classmates and reflected his retention of a key component of his knowledge of grammar to his teacher.

We can always learn from our students. I live by the motto "Teach what you want to learn." This young student helped me see more clearly, as well as his classmates, and then all of the students I will teach in the future when I use this poem. I already did in the remaining classes of the day and will in the six classes left for me to teach this week.

I love this work!

Finding the Middle Ground for Students

This week and next, I am working with twelve 3rd-grade classes, several of which are self-contained special ed. rooms, at least one bi-lingual class of Spanish-speaking students with various levels of English language proficiency, and all a host of kids who definitely have cabin fever after a long winter in the Northeast. Teachers too...

In the years that I have been practicing my skills in K-12 education, I have developed an ever-growing base of resources for poems that have a multicultural foundation so I can present students and teachers with poems that reflect the cultural experiences they know. In the world of poetry according to the dead white guys, this has been a valuable endeavor and many teachers have appreciated the resources. Students enjoy seeing their own image in the poems, recognizing their own language at times, feeling that they can relate to the message and experience in the work.

This is vitally important, I believe, in middle and high school, where the conversations can take on levels of critical thinking and empathy that are very profound.

However, in elementary schools, I find that I am searching for a different kind of poem to teach. I strive to find the poem that is so universal that every child, no matter what their heritage, lineage, socio-economic class, or geographical location, can relate to the words and draw a conclusion, develop an image to reflect back in their own words or drawings. I am also always looking for poems that have a little bit of ambiguity to debate and that are not based on rhyming couplets.

This is not an easy endeavor. I teach a wide demographic throughout the school year. I stand before very diverse classrooms. I am not always in front of a class that is predominantly White or Black. I may be teaching a class with as many as 10 nationalities and ethnicities represented. I am not alone with this. So where are the poems that are not too simplistic but not over the heads of my students, that employ language that invites the students to stretch and ponder, that either base a rhyme scheme in a more complex form or that do not rhyme at all?


I have a few that I rely upon: my beloved "Knoxville, Tennessee" by Nikki Giovanni is probably number one. In fact, after teaching this poem for nearly 4 years, only a handful of students have come to the conclusion that the poem was written by an African American poet (no matter where I am teaching or what the skin tone of my classes). Kay Ryan's "Bear Song" is probably second on the list for all the reasons I outlined above. William Carlos Williams' "To an Poor Old Woman" is a wonderful opportunity for conversation.

This week I added another poem to my list of favorite tried-and-trues, discovered in Poetry Speaks to Children. The poem is called "Skating in the Wind," by Kristin O'Connell George. This poem is so clear and concise yet it permits many perspectives, all valid. It is perfect for illustrating that we can have many interpretations of a poem and it mirrors experiences that most children can relate to either by their own actual experience or experiences they have witnessed. And still we can discuss the poem for 3 days and not be bored, we can discover answers to the mystery.

If you know of other examples of poems with universal themes and fascinating language and image, I would appreciate the recommendations. I will certainly have more kids to share the magic of poetry with and more reason to read.

And Now, Time for Some Poetry...

After being fully immersed for more than a year in drafting, crafting, thrashing, revamping, revising, and fine-tuning Our Difficult Sunlight, in general, I left poems by the wayside. I had initiated four cycles of poems, many of which will be united into book entities once the cycles are complete; however, once there was a contract with a hard deadline looming for the book project, it had to be a priority.

I found that I enjoy the process of writing prose as well. There is a very different experience with prose. For one thing, I do better at prose if I work directly on the keyboard. Poetry needs to first be drafted by hand. It has a delicate nature to me in that early stage. But prose is a streaming that allows me to rely on my nearly 15 years of clerical work and my role as a "document technician." In other words, I can type quickly and my fingers are more able to keep up with my thinking on the keyboard for the prosaic expression, just as it is now...as I blog these thoughts.

Also, I am accustomed to the concise form of a poem as I have held in my view for many years. Having developed the habit of keeping poems to a single page, and particularly to 40 lines or less, since many literary journals ask for that length to fit their magazine size and limits, essays give me a range to investigate and postulate. I am able to develop a thought in a much different manner, which entails more words.

So the poems were stalemated. The words were still flowing...and gushing...and flooding. Then the project was complete, the edits (many, many slash-and-burn trips through the manuscript) accomplished, and the book is now heading into print in its final and, hopefully, blemishless form.

A few weeks ago, I was traveling back home from Chicago and the first launch events for ODS. The book launch itself was heartwarming and it was wonderful to be welcomed into the community of artists, writers, students, and educators that embraces Quraysh and the work he does. The in-service workshop was profound as well, as the very diverse group that attended worked together to meet a common goal of deepening their already rich connection to poetry in ways that will support their own teaching in whatever setting they work.

As I waited for my flight, my pen was demanding attention. I opened my journal for the usual rundown of activities and emotions that fill volume after volume of these little books charting my moods and movement through life. Instead, a voice started narrating a perspective on a tale that was fairly new to me, shared by my mother's cousin at a family gathering this past summer. The voice continued through the waiting, and once we boarded, the voice started up again. My fingers transcribed as quickly as possible for the first part of the flight. Then I needed a nap so I closed the journal for a little while.

There was a brief layover in Philadelphia, when the voice completed her story. I was amazed at how seemlessly it all unfolded.

As soon as I could, which turned out to be a couple of days later due to the insane pace of my life the first quarter of 2011, I typed up that rendering, starting the whittling and tweaking that I love so much. The poem's second draft was two and a half pages! I was shocked.

I worked that poem and returned to a draft from the summer that was buried in the last volume of my journal. Once typed, it was two pages long as well.

Then, prompted by Jennifer Pashley after she read the first of these pieces, I have drafted a third poem, almost four full pages long.

I have clearly broken some barrier within myself. I attribute the new work and the length that these poems are striving towards as the response to all the expository writing I have done over two years. It took that third poem to cause me to examine the trend and draw the correlation.

After a brief moment of celebration that the poems were happening again, I started to panic. Who will publish these? They are so long! I don't know where the market will be for these pieces. What am I going to do with them?!

After indulging myself for a brief span of time, reason resounded, "Just write them, dammit."

I collected myself and developed a level of clarity I have not had in a long time. The important issue is that I am writing, and that I am producing poems. I need to be concerned with these poems first and foremost. Identifying a home in print is entirely secondary to the work at hand, rather than being my motivator. If I am diligent and astute enough, the poems will find homes. Right now, it is the poem that is important, not the repository for it. That will be determined at a later date. I can liken it to the parents who are researching colleges while their children are cutting their first teeth. Revel in the fact that poems are emerging. That is cause for celebration and massive word play of its own accord.

The To-Do List...Where to Start?

Having been on the road for most of the past 6 weeks, there is a pile of mail on the dining room table to deal with, I have laundry, emails that have been on hold, vacuuming the hefty dust bunnies, and then there is the shoveling that is pressing since it has snowed at least 6 inches since I pulled into the driveway Friday evening and pulled the key from the ignition.

There is always a list! Book promotion events to orchestrate, Comstock Review deadlines that have passed and I need to catch up with, writing projects, thank-you notes for a myriad of reasons, plants to repot, finances to address and bills to pay, calls to return, course proposals to draft and submit, and this is just some of it all. I took the weekend as a retreat and got a lot of sleep, much needed and welcomed quiet time. Now to get busy with all that I need to accomplish before I head out on the highway once again.

Not the least, I want to work on some poems. The book is done, now to return to verse. There are at least four cycles of poems that have been very patient with me while I accomplish other goals but now to return. I feel a bit cranky about poetry actually...like I am not taking enough risk, not striving beyond my comfort zone. I want to say something of import, of value, so how to do that?! Oh gee...I am not really sure. I know that some of the first attempts at some work are long! Much longer than I have ever tended to write and this is intriguing. I have concern about the publishing aspect of the long poem, particularly since I have always gauged my poems to accommodate the needs of the typical poetry journal. For instance, Comstock Review asks for an average of 38 lines to give a poem a page. But I know poets who write long poems, where do they publish? I guess the real point is to just write. To be more concerned with the poem than the outcome. If I take that stance, who knows what I will discover? I have found that I am rather bored with my poetic voice as I flip through the binder of work that is on hold. I know that Joy the Agnostic wants to be a bad-ass and is tired of sitting idly while the world is going crazy. The Twins are wondering about their fate and all the letter poems are asking to be honed like carbon steel to a fine edge.

I also know that I find a great deal of creativity in crafting a lesson plan and there are several that need to be transcribed as well. I will get to some of this list but first...finish the cappuccino and start the laundry!

Sunday and I've Almost Caught Up on My Sleep

It feels good to be home. I have slept so much the past 2 nights. It also feels good to have some time to myself. I have been rippin' and runnin' for weeks but I have 2 weeks ahead of me to reground, clean some of the chaos of my home, finish up some pending projects, reconnect with friends, and just not be so much on the fly.

I also have the processing of all of the experiences since January started. I continue to marvel at the miracles each time I step into a learning situation. My favorite part of any learning group is the exchange, the way ideas can breed response and connection, if the participants are open and willing. Sometimes it takes a little urging to reach that point, sometimes it is just there from the get-go.

The greatest revelation is that I love planning and/or discovering new lessons and themes for residencies. The act of formulating a new curriculum is a creative endeavor. I love it. It is as enthralling as working a new poem into its full identity. Discovering the connections between an outside prompt, a particular space or subject, and the expression of it all in poetry (either poems written by others or new creations by the students) is a puzzle that will fit together if one is open and patient in the search. It is a journey and sometimes it is driven by intuition first. 

This past week was a journey of discovery for both me and my classes but we charted territory that can be translated to many different environments, age groups, and course lines. I will transcribe it all this week. Now, it is time to work on the scrawled notes in my journal that are yearning to be shaped into a new poem. Happy Sunday...think Spring.

Saturday Morning after a Long Haul

The past few weeks have been a fabulous and exhausting flurry. After a January of teaching both middle and high school with just a few days off to process all that work had been, I headed to Washington, DC, with Jennifer Pashley for the annual AWP conference. Jennifer is a truly gifted fiction writer, author of a startling and wonderful collection, States. We were collaborating with several other colleagues for a booth at the AWP Book Fair, a dizzying rabbit warren of many hundreds of vendors, programs, journals, publishers, many offering delightful swag. Each year I look forward to trick-or-treating through the aisles as I collect the best buttons on my lanyard and search for cool toys. I have attended the past three AWP conferences, each year I experience the conference from a different perspective, and each year I travel with Jennifer. In Chicago two years ago, we were newbies. Last year, I was more prepared for the overwhelming swarm of the conference. This year, as both a participant in the Book Fair and member of two panels, I was committed to those duties so the only sessions I made it to were those on which I presented. But I saw a lot of friends, helped support the other colleagues of our booth (Rochester's Writers & Books, the Downtown Writer's Center of Syracuse, arts journal Stone Canoe, Tiger Bark Press, and I was there for Comstock Review), and the two panels were great conversations.

I presented in one of the many panels sponsored by the Writers in the Schools Alliance, on the topic of teaching in settings other than the classroom. There are so many ways, so many environments in which the creative response and the sense of self blend to create opportunity. The second panel was the discussion that my co-author Quraysh Ali Lansana and I proposed on the topic of poetry and social justice in the classroom. With Nandi Comer, Randall Horton, and Toni Asante Lightfoot joining us, this was a spirited, even passionate conversation among the panelists and with those attending the session.

Quraysh was also able to bring nearly 25 copies of Our Difficult Sunlight, most of which we sold after the panel and as we each encountered friends and colleagues. What a thrill to hold the book in hand! I am still not used to it but what an affirmation it proves to be. Years of work, the sum of even more years of experience, and now all that thought, all those words, each conversation and transcription distilled into 200 pages wrapped in a cover that glows with the perfect visual metaphor for the work by Chicago artist, Joyce Owens. Astounding achievement. I am grateful to Q for the partnership.

After just two days home to recuperate from AWP, I flew to Chicago for the first launch events for ODS. Sponsored by the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, with support from the Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, the launch was two-fold. On Thursday evening, February 10th, we presented the book publically with an evening's reception and program that was emceed by Toni Asante Lightfoot, with comments from Dr. Haki Madhubuti and a featured performance by the young poets of "Purpose of Life Poetry Ensemble," then comments from both Q and myself. There was a wonderful turnout of well over 70. The Hull-House Museum staff was so gracious and we are very grateful to Lisa Yun Lee, Director of the Museum, for all she did to make both the evening's event and the in-service workshop the next day stellar.

On Friday afternoon, we worked with approximately 45 teachers, program and academic directors, and teaching artists to develop teaching approaches that would use the Museum as a focus and teaching tool, as well as incorporating poetry into the Museum experience as well as generally more an organic part of the teaching day. Participants wrote collaborative poems based on their exploration of the Museum and the work groups created some initial concepts for comprehensive lesson plans that addressed each of the core content subject areas as well. The room was alive with creativity and learning in a similar spirit as that of the history of Hull House. In fact, both events were held in the historical landmark, the Residents' Dining Hall, where the likes of Jane Addams herself, W.E.B. DuBois, and Eleanor Roosevelt were just a few of those many who have dined in that very room. At one moment, after screening the short documentary about the Hull House Settlement and its ongoing mission, we took a few moments in silence to honor the ancestors of that space and work that has, in some ways, defined the American experience and commitment to social justice. It was humbling.

After the flush and hustle of the Chicago visit, I flew home to host Randall Horton's visit to accept the Bea Gonzalez Prize from this year's edition of Stone Canoe. The next morning, after Randall headed back to New Haven, I packed and prepared to drive to Middletown for a week at Twin Towers Middle School. It was a great week and I posted some of the classwork in my previous entry. Spring teased us a bit during the week, especially yesterday, when I walked out of school at 2:30, the schoolyard full of students eager for this upcoming week's vacation, the teachers urging those lagging behind out the doors so they could also start their break. It was 67 degrees and the sun was glorious. I drove along NY Route 17 through the southern part of the state looking for more encouragement that Spring was in fact on its way, then up Route 81 to home. The temperature dropped 15 degrees and the clouds started to appear, the closer I got to my driveway.

I was asleep by 10 p.m.! The winds were fierce with gusts of 40 - 50 mph all night. This morning, I woke to the drop and scrape of my plow guy's blade, AGAIN! There are 4 inches of new snow, the lake effect is still blowing sideways, and I need to get ready to go up to Thornden Park, where we will celebrate the annual Chili Fest. I am reluctant to go out the door but we will be gathering lines for a collaborative poem about the park and I will laugh with neighbors, so it will be a good welcoming home. I have two weeks to anchor into my home and what better way to start than to see friends and share "I can't wait for Spring" tales as we sample hot chili together while the last of the winter winds howl through the park that will soon explode with blossom and leaf?

Learning on the Fly: The Fine Art of Revising the Lesson Plan In the Moment

Today is the last day of a 5-day middle school residency that has been a total delight. I have been with two 7th grade Literacy classes, two 8th grade English classes, and two self-contained classes with students with Autism and other special needs (these two classes had widely varied skills between the two groups and even among the students). The teachers who invite me into their classes put their curriculum on hold for the week so I can bring something different to their students. For this reason, I attempt to tie my lessons and my week's scope and sequence to enforce what the teachers are responsible to impart on their young people in order to meet the needs of the grade level and, yes, the assessments.

These last two days we are working on reading poems and staging them as performance in a collaborative effort. I began yesterday with the activity that I learned from Quraysh Ali Lansana from his days in the mid-90s when he toured with Poetry Alive! and worked with Asheville poet and educator, Allan Wolf. This exercise involves a small group performance of Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool," a poem just a pertinent today as it was when she first wrote it in the early 1950s. Quraysh has shared this experience in both of the professional development workshops we have presented together in the past month and two of the teachers I am working with this week were participants in one of those sessions so now they are teaching the same activity as well as seeing me model it once again.

After yesterday's classes when we worked at making the poem real and alive, today I selected four poems of similar length: "I, Too, Sing America" by Langston Hughes, "To a Poor Old Woman" by William Carlos Williams, Nikki Giovanni's gem "Knoxville, Tennessee," and an ekphrastic poem by my friend and colleague Phil Memmer called "Seven a.m.," written to Edward Hopper's mysterious painting of the same name.

The students are asked to count off to create three or four work groups, then a copy of the poem has been distributed to each group to share, listen to, read, discuss, and then stage for the rest of the class. After the performances, the audience is to offer what Ryfkah Horwitz, my dear friend, sister poet, and supreme classroom teacher has taught me as sandwich critique (a positive statment, a suggestion for improvement, and another positive statement).

So the first period I discovered that I need multiple copies for each group, as they took too much time passing the poem around and then they wrote on the poem in the blocking and staging process (although they were kind enough to use pencil so I could erase notes until where it was in the building that the additional copies printed to when I had a chance to run them!).

Some of the groups decided to create props and that was great. It was also an assessment of engagement for both me and the teachers. The students were making plums and corncobs; some students were blocking entrances from the hallway to illustrate Langston's "...when company comes," and some were developing southern or more formal accents to share their poems. Some students were assigning specific lines or stanzas. Other groups worked on choral recitations and discovered elegance and eloquence in the process.

I figured out the second go-through that it would be advantageous to have the poem projected on the Smartboard for both the performers and the audience. Revision #2 on the fly.

I also used the activity to point out some elements of poetry, such as the importance of the title. The title is the welcome mat to the poem and, as with the WCW poem, it can serve as the first line so the poem is a bit out of context without inclusion in the overall recitation. We looked at the line ends and what happens if you pause at the end when it is not the end of the sentence but also how the end words gain extra capital in the split second that it takes the eye to move from the end of one line to the start of another.

Revision #3...sometimes when you have students count out 1...2..3..4...all the class clowns wind up in the same group! Rely on the teacher to determine if there is a rough mix!

There were other moments of tweaking that my host teachers and I each added to our lessons thus far. There will be more tweaking I will do over the weekend so I may continue to use this as another building block of my practice. And I will think of 10 young men, all students with Autism, sharing the lovely list of the best parts of a southern summer day, articulately, enthusiastically, and with profound collaboration.

Another wonderful week and after two more class periods, I get to drive through this tease of spring to my home, where rumor has it the oppressive snowbanks in my back yard are melting, where I presume the blades of iris leaves and primroses are trying to reach through to the warm sun, and to sleep in my own bed for 2 whole weeks before I hit the road again. If it is clear, I may even be treated with the spectacle of the Northern Lights since this week was honored with a major solar flare. I can only hope. It is the perfect allegory of my life.

The Afterglow of a Dream Made Manifest

What a whirlwind few weeks. January was a full month of teaching in both Middletown and Watkins Glen. When I move from district to district, I also get to look at differences that geography and community culture create. The types of references and allusions that I am able to draw upon change from one demographic to another.

For instance, I find that students in a smaller rural town such as Watkins Glen have a stronger connection to the natural world and, in a way, the the cycles of life in a wider expression that just human. I can make reference to the way a hawk rides the thermals or the color of soil when it is turned over in spring as another shade of brown. Brown may be very different in a city environment.

I am also conscious of how city youth and rural youth are familiar with gun culture but in much different ways. Guns are common in rural homes but it has more to do with hunting and food. These young people use guns with training and witness death in tangible, unglorified ways. They have their hands in death and the purpose of hunting for not just the sport but the practical aspect of sustenance. We are also not talking about semi-automatic weapons with this but shotguns. Big difference that many legislators and Supreme Court Justices do not grasp.

In the homeroom sharing circle one morning just after the Christmas holiday vacation, the 6th graders were telling what they received as gifts and what resolutions they had made. One rosy-faced girl cherrily proclaimed that she had received just what she wanted, a pink BB gun. Wow...that was a surprise to me and I said so. She beamed, "Yeah! It's great!" Another girl said, "I have a blue one!" And they know how to use them well. It reminded me that I admired the fact that my friend's older brother had a BB gun when we were all kids. I was amazed and mesmorized, and terrified.

In the city, we are usually talking about handguns, which, to my thinking, have a singular purpose: to kill other humans. And there are a lot of incidents of this being the case. One young man in my hometown last summer shot a man on the street as they passed each other, strangers both. His reason, to the police: "I didn't like how he was looking at me."

Have we come to this as our way? Dehumanized to the point that a life is worthless in the perceived slight of another? I have thought that a way to deglamorize the whole world of handguns is to afford urban youth who are very isolated from the natural cycles opportunites to work on farms. To tend animals through births and slaughter, to collect eggs, to plant in spring and harvest in summer, and to hunt. To learn about the power of firearms and potential lethal aspects. To slog into the woods and take down a turkey or a deer, and then to clean them for butchering as well. Get a young person intimately involved in the life cycle this way and perhaps they will not be as cavalier with their own lives or the lives of others.

I had friend in college who was studying to be a gunsmith. He went everywhere with his rifle prominently positioned on his lap, across the table, etc. I would object to bringing a gun into my home and that spawned some animated conversations. One day he asked, "Are you afraid of gums?" I stated that I was. He challenged me to give him a tangible reason, additionally saying that guns are not the problem, humans are, in that they do not respect the power of a gun and life itself. He said, "I want to take you shooting. If you are going to be opposed to guns, I want you to understand why."

So we went out into the country with his rifle and his handgun and I shot both. The rifle was a replica of an 1863 Springfield (if I remember correctly), a buffalo gun intended to take down the steam engine of a bovine. It was the gun that Custer's troops used to kill Native children and women. It had an explosive power that would pulverize a human body. Its kickback left a deep purple/black bruise the size of a grapefruit on my arm and my shoulder ached for a long time. The handgun was a 44 with a trigger that needed to be pulled hard. Then I sort of blacked out for about 30 seconds and my ears were tainted with the assault of firing at close range. A huge chunk of the tree blasted away and I was dumbstruck. I had enough information as to why I am leery of guns. It is not the guns, is true, it is the person behind them and the intention. And the training...or lack of. How many 15 year olds who get their hands on a glok know how to handle it, much less truly respect the weight of its import or potential?

Just a thought...as always...

Chicago Book Launch and In-Service This Week

I am in my busiest season, the world is under the pressing thumb of winter, and I need a clone! Tomorrow I head to Chicago after a couple of days of catch-up from AWP and sleep in my own bed. It is so exciting to be finally on the road with Our Difficult Sunlight, sharing the book and all that it has to offer.

There are two events in the Second City this week, both hosted at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Thursday night is the reception and launch program, featuring Dr. Haki  R. Madhubuti, Dr. Carol D. Lee (Safisha Madhubuti), the young poets of the Purpose of Life Poetry Ensemble, my co-author, Quraysh Ali Lansana and myself, and the evening's emcee, Toni Asanti Lightfoot. It promises to be a fabulous evening and there is still time to RSVP (contact info available on the Hull-House Museum link).

Friday, Quraysh and I are facilitating an in-service for Chicago-area teachers and teaching artists who work in school and afterschool programs. The training is from noon to 4 PM at the Museum, is free of charge and includes lunch. RSVP to the Hull-House Museum as well.

We are grateful for this opportunity to be affiliated with the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum as we present our book to the world. Director Lisa Yun Lee and Project Director Kelly Saulsberry have offered a tremendous gift to us in all that they have done to make these events extraordinary. We hope to see some of you there!

Bringing Our Difficult Sunlight into the World

This past week, thousands of writers and educators who teach writing met at the annual AWP conference in Washington, DC to share practices, pedagogy, readings, meals, beverages of varied tastes, and many hugs. It was my third AWP conference and this time I sat on two panels, was an exhibitor on behalf of Comstock Review, and by some miracle of the universe, Quraysh and I were able to distribute approximately 20 copies of Our Difficult Sunlight!

The snows had buried Chicago yet the books managed to be delivered to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (our hosts for the first of a series of book launches this spring) on Wednesday. My co-author, Quraysh Ali Lansana, was scheduled to fly to DC Thursday so he slogged through the slush and snowbanks to retrieve copies for each of us to hold with delight and the rest to sell. And sell we did! It was amazing to receive the enthusiastic support from colleagues and those who attended our panel on Saturday.

I sat on one panel sponsored by the national Writers in the Schools Alliance on Thursday while we discussed teaching writing in settings other than the classroom. The possibilities are unlimited when we engage students in new environments and the conversation was inspiring and well received. 

Saturday afternoon's panel on poetry and social justice was quite remarkable. The room was nearly full, something I had been concerned about since it was the last afternoon of the conference and I was not sure how many people would be experiencing burn-out or would have already left for home. We had lost a couple of panelists, as many had with the weather and budgetary concerns everyone is experiencing. Fortunately we were able to enlist Toni Asante Lightfoot of Young Chicago Authors and University of New Haven's Randall Horton to join us in the eleventh hour and what brilliance they brought to the session. 

As moderator, Quraysh read a brief excerpt from the book before introducing  each of the speakers, starting with our original panelist, Nandi Comer (now an MFA candidate at Indiana University and former program director at InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit). Nandi started the conversation with wise and well-thought out comments on the programming she has been a part of over her years in Detroit community efforts. Randall spoke to working with incarcerated writers with a depth of knowledge that was profound and highly respectful of those who are living in the American prison system. Randall reminded all of us that sometimes a poor choice is just that and humans have the power to turn their own course of life to positive outcomes. Toni Asante Lightfoot took the tenor of her years in urban writing programming to remind us all that we have troubles in our schools and it is a collective effort to reach out to perhaps save our youth but surely to remind them that they have voice that is valuable to us all.

The questions and comments after our presentations were remarkable. One woman spoke of her year with young women writers in South Africa, others addressed working with young people with Autism, the marginalization of students in countless ways, the pressures on teachers, among other concerns.

The most poignant moment of all was the last comment from the audience. A tall young man, trim in a tailored raincoat, short crew cut, and wide, bright face thanked us for offering this discussion. He elaborated by saying that as a teen, he was headed the wrong way on the life road, attracted to the world glorified by media and MTV. He said it was poetry that saved his life and he meant it quite literally. He was attracted to gang life and the world of the street but he had someone who introduced him to the pen and he said, "Without it, I would probably not have been here now..." 

We often never know the impact of our work. We can only hope and keep doing. Sometimes, someone shares that there is value beyond our expectation. I was one of those for whom poetry has been my lifeline. It continues to be this day, in which I celebrate my third book, the one for which I am most proud.

Here it is...the cover of "Our Difficult Sunlight"

As Quraysh and I approach the tangible joy of holding our book in our hands in the near future, here is a quick peek at the cover, with the gorgeous cover image by Joyce Owens. Thanks Joyce and thanks Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Just 2 weeks to the Chicago book launch! The tip of the iceberg in presenting this project to the world. We appreciate all who helped us get to this magnificent moment. More soon!

Sunday, the Week Behind, the One Ahead

I am in the midst of a big push with my work in schools, adjusting the other elements of my work to my teaching and travel schedule, striving to finish up all the back log of pending projects one at a time until I am current and planning ahead for what is next. This is the goal of my year ahead, to achieve this clearing of the slate and creating new goals for my future.

I have the honor of this work as a poet and teaching artist. In all honesty, I am rather amazed that I am where I am, living my prime identity as my profession as well as foundation. It is not an avocation; I am and always have been a poet. The Journey of Return is complete and I am so very grateful, if not astounded.

In classrooms, I witness amazing and sometimes confounding things. There are miracles every day and it is a gift to receive the moments with students and teachers that are presented to me to appreciate. The outcome of any lesson or activity can never be fully anticipated and we do not, or should not, underestimate the power of art, the power of language, and the human spirit. We will always be surprised as we teach. And we are always able to marvel at the power of learning and the teachable moment. We also are strongest when we are willing to learn ourselves.

And we teach what we want to know. I have always been confused by those who claim that teaching (particularly as a teaching artist in K-12 education) detracts from their art, or somehow distorts, dilutes their own aesthetic or integrity. I find just the opposite. By having to explain and impart the elements of my art form, poetry, to hundreds or thousands of other human beings, be they 6 years old or 70, I am articulating my own poetic viewpoint to others in the hopes of sharing the perspective to show ways for the students to amplify their own efforts in writing. In that telling, I understand my own relationship with the craft more and more. 

I anticipate that there will always be a question that causes me to stop and consider. There are challenges to my premise and I find the need to make the argument. But mostly, it is about enthusiasm, the transfer in energy that causes momentum in the wonder and participation of a roomful of 4th graders or an adult community program intro to poetry class.

It is just a few weeks before Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (Teachers and Writers Collaborative, 2011) is back from the printers. My creative partner and co-author, Quraysh Ali Lansana, and I are planning book launches in Chicago, New York, and Syracuse to present our premise to our colleagues and communities of writers, educators, and artists. It is exciting that, after years of thinking, planning, noting, negotiating, drafting, honing and revising, cutting, waiting, pushing, it is nearly done. Just a few days and the cycle of creation that any book entails will be complete. Soon we will have it in hand and will be sharing it with others.

I am looking forward to all the opportunities that will present themselves through the exchange that the book Quraysh and I have created will initiate, if we meet our goals with the project. We have stated our individual views of poetry and learning, our shared pedagogy and philosophy, even some of our politic, with the intention of offering perspectives that help any teacher or writer in their own teaching practice. Quraysh and I both love poetry and we love to teach. This book would not have been what it is if either of us had attempted it on our own, something we both reminded ourselves of regularly throughout the creative process.

We are proud of what Our Difficult Sunlight has shone itself to be. We are looking forward to the events and in-service workshops that we are planning now to support the book. We are hoping that we will have books in hand at the AWP conference in a couple of weeks. At the Book Fair, find information at the Writers in the Schools Alliance table. Copies will be for sale at the booth that Comstock Review will share with three other organizations from Central/Upstate New York:  Syracuse's Downtown Writer's Center, Stone Canoe, and from Rochester, Writers and Books.

Quraysh and I are presenting a panel, "The Youth Voice Amplified: Poetry and Social Justice in Classroom and Community," Saturday at 3:00 - 4:15 p.m. I am also joining a panel sponsored by the Writers in the Schools Alliance on Thursday - 3:00 p.m., titled "A Classroom as Big as the World."

There will be more announcements. For now, I am still marveling at all the students I have spent the past few weeks with and prepping for the week ahead. More about that as well. I pledge to be more proactive with my posts. There is so much to convey. Thanks for reading and stay warm. Now time for more football, a sport I am finally coming to understand. Happy Sunday and playoffs.

Coming In Off the Road

It is always a strange decompression after a week in a school. The best part of this work is the mystery to solve. What will students respond to, open their minds and hearts to accept, what new concepts may be investigated, all through a multitude of lenses from which we observe and participate in the world? 

Trusting intuition is the most valuable asset for a teaching artist. If this moment presents the opportunity for a conversation that will change the angle of perception, go for it. What is there to lose. 

This week I had the privilege of working with a small group of high school teachers and partnering with my collaborator, colleague, and friend Quraysh Ali Lansana. The same week, Poetry Alive was booked for assemblies throughout the day. The irony was that Q was a touring teaching poet with Poetry Alive for several years in the early to mid 1990s. We somehow were scheduled that day with classes that were not attending the performance in the auditorium. It was a magnificent parallel.

So much of what any of us do as educators, be it the fine large group work that Poetry Alive had been providing for years or the classroom experience that others embrace, is beyond definition and often beyond any single lesson plan.

We wait for the earnest questions, the eyes that light up n the most unexpected face, the moment in which it all gels in the conversation. Sometimes the spark of righteous indignation...compassion... Sometimes it is in the flare of a new politic. Or maybe just a marvel in the potential of language coupled with thought and empathy.

There are moments of magic that fuel teachers to keep doing what they do. This week we investigated the poetry of identity and migration with 9th graders through the poems of Rhina Espaillat, Langston Hughes, Li-Young Lee, Phil Memmer, Edward Hopper's painting, Gwendolyn Brooks and her tie between 1953 and 2011, and the world just on the other side of the window, the beat and measure of our names. We were immersed in language, curiosity, history and politics, all peppered with humor. It was a dance, it was a rush.

When a teacher agrees to invite a teaching artist in the classroom, it is a risk in many ways. There is a process of developing trust that takes time to cultivate. There is a lot at stake - the success and enthusiasm of the students being the most specific and significant but certainly not the only outcome desired.

When the flow is right, it is symphonic, it is surfing, it is hang-gliding in the cosmic jetstream. I am sure all teachers feel this way. It is an honor. It is humbling, teaching is a rush. Bearing witness to true openness to learning is an outstanding thrill and marvel. I am ever grateful for my career. 

Have a good weekend, all, and happy birthday to Dr. King. May we always remember.

Now I've Seen Everything

I am not sure why, after so many years in classrooms in all sorts of circumstances and communities, that I can find myself surprised. But darned if it did not happen again last week. I am teaching a group of 6th graders for nine days throughout January. Sixth graders are among the grouping now referred to as "digital natives." They are plugged into the grid in ways that neither Marshall McCluhan or Timothy Leary could have ever envisioned back in the day.

My first morning gave me a view of this digital proclivity that has been thus far unsurpassed. One young lady held what appeared to me to be a phone in a nice case, black and sleek. I have concerns about how many students are distracted in class by their phones and I-Pods, how many walk the halls and sit at their desks with earbud wires dangling from their lobes. This student walked up to proudly display all the notes she had taken on her phone while I had delivered my first lesson. I replied that I thought it was great that she was so interested and found so much she wanted to remember but my internal dialogue was more along these lines: "You need a phone to take notes? What happened to pencils and paper? What if the phone rings? Are you going to answer it?"

Then I noticed how many other students had their own black phones handy. They were all carrying their phones everywhere. During a break, I mentioned to the teacher hosting my visit that the young lady had shown me notes on a cell and she said (with a note of sarcasm), "Oh no...those are MLDs...mobile learning devices..."

What?! She went on to explain that each of the 6th and 7th graders had received what in essence was a cell phone without calling privileges but they all had internet access and could use the notepad functions as well. This was to be handy in all classes for note taking, web based inquiry, and even more, teachers are expected to develop lesson plans, activities, and games to support their curriculum.

Now how did this all come about? It seems that a cell phone provider in the community awarded a grant to the school to purchase these MDLs and netbooks for all the 8th graders in the interest of technological advances in the classroom. Yeah...right...

Each student is carrying this equipment emblazoned with the name of the company on it, thus marking their consciousness with the brand. Students are leaving these devices behind in classes, they are losing them, they forget to charge them properly or in time for class. As a learning tool, perhaps they are. But I have some reservations about this marketing...a cell company giving grants to purchase equipment that looks suspiciously similar to outmoded phones and small laptops in the advent of smart phones and I-Pads, and every time the students look at their gadgets, they are being predisposed to purchase product from their benefactors. Hmmmmm...what else is there to say?

Back in the Saddle

Now that I am fully supporting as a poet, editor, and teaching artist, my cycles are revealing themselves. The summers have become a period of reading and writing, for the most part. I can spend time on the front porch or the back deck, especially because my wireless router provides mobility. Autumn is when I teach a discussion seminar, Viewing the World through Changing Lenses, for the Renee Crown Honors Program at Syracuse University and generally a course or two for the Downtown Writer’s Center. Then, in late fall, my work in schools begins and I am back on the road through the spring blossoming.

This fall I had a terrific experience with all three classes while I also completed the revision and finer edits with Quraysh Ali Lansana on our book, Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community, which will be available from Teachers & Writers Collaborative in February 2011. The Honors course included nine very talented college students with a tremendous commitment to themselves and the learning process. The DWC courses were equally fulfilling; both for adult writers, one was an intro to poetry and the second was an advanced workshop for poets who have engaged in the DWC PRO Certification Program. Since I live by the motto, “teach what you want to learn,” immersion in the craft and facilitating the exploration of two groups of writers gave me reason to keep myself sharp at all times. Best part is that, now that Our Difficult Sunlight is completed, I can go back to the pile of poems that have been sorely neglected and perhaps finish several book projects.

I also had a quick turnaround trip to Orlando early Thanksgiving week to join a panel of remarkable colleagues to present a post-conference intensive workshop for the National Council of Teachers of English. This day focused on the power of writers in the classroom and it was an honor to be invited to share my perspective as an independent teaching artist. I do wish I had been able to attend more of the conference because there were countless workshops I would have loved to sit in on as well as network with teachers while soaking up the Disney brainwashing.

After Thanksgiving, I packed up the suitcase and the car trunk and hit the highway for my first residency of the 2010 – 2011 school year. What an amazing 10 days with middle schoolers. I was invited into a wider variety of classes this year, my sixth in visiting this school. I was with literacy classes to support stronger reading and writing skills, standard English classes, enriched English classes with advanced students, and several self-contained special education classes. We did so much together. Some of the students worked with my premise of reading poems as if engaged in a video game. Other classes were writing memoir poems utilizing a framework of “Six-Word Memoirs.” Still others were creating persona poems, one class even developed their personas in response to completing S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. This also meant I finally read the novel myself so I could ask pertinent questions. Although this novel is often assigned reading for young people, my secondary education preceded its popularity. But now I have still another tool in my work.

I get to be so creative in this arena. I become not just educator or poet but Game Master, storyteller, confidant, even inspiration sometimes. The only part I don’t love is disciplinarian but there are times when it is necessary. Boundaries must be maintained for the good work to happen. I will outline a few of my favorite moments with these young minds next week. For now, I am nursing the cold that followed me home through the snow last Friday, the general outcome of my return to K-12 classrooms year after year. It is such a rewarding career, one that took me most of my adulthood to achieve. I feel valuable and fulfilled, and quite sniffly.

Living as a Lifelong Learner

Everything I know about teaching I have learned through my experiences in the classroom. Sometimes these lessons are due to trial and error. Other skills are the result of my continual professional development that is the result of the example of the terrific teachers I work with year after year. Every teacher gives me something that I can use not just with their students but with other classes as I continue in this work as a teaching artist.

This morning, one of my host teachers gave me a very simple suggestion that will make my lessons so much more student driven and meaningful for us all. She suggested from her experience in the past few years that, when asking a question, give the students a few moments to discuss the question in peer partnership. Students are often sitting with partners or in small groups. Allowing a short exchange to discuss theories and responses before bringing their thoughts to the collective, and the "authorities" at the front of the class makes so much sense. This creates a learning environment that is much more student driven. The other thing I sensed is that it reduces some of the "performance anxiety" some students may feel in answering a question.

None of us wants to be wrong, particularly in a public forum. We are embarrassed if we wave to someone thinking it is someone we know, but we are mistaken. Taking the risk to answer a question in front of peers may be very challenging for some students so they may withdraw. This is even more plausible with a teaching artist since there needs to be the time to create safety in sharing between students and visitor. I will be using this approach from hereon in. I look forward to observing how my discussions progress from the effort. I think there is tremendous opportunity for even more exciting responses and perhaps I will not have to "pull" so much from students. They will be ready to share their ideas because they will already have taken them for a test drive.

What's Up with All the Bullying?!

I have started my 2010-2011 teaching season in public schools now that the fall sessions of my university honors course and two adult classes in poetry have been completed. I am working for these first two weeks with middle school students, ten different classes, five per week, and the skill sets for each class vary. This means multiple approaches to language, literacy, reading poems, writing poems, inference, and all the other elements I find ways to include in my conversations with these young minds.

Over the summer, I worked with my colleague and dear friend, Quraysh Ali Lansana, on our book for teachers and teaching artists, Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, and Social Justice in Classroom and Community (scheduled for release in February 2011 by Teachers and Writers Collaborative). In one of our essays, I addressed a clique of 9th grade young women who managed to disrupt their class day after day, not just while I was visiting but throughout the school year.

One of our peer reviewers asked at that time if we were going to touch on the current issues of bullying among young people, since the essay did not speak directly to that point. I did not directly witness these young women acting as bullies but I did see them as reluctant learners who were much more concerned with their own images and interests than educating themselves or allowing others to learn in the classroom environment; for this reason, I did not want to add that element to the essay.

There is a lot of business being generated these days surrounding bullying. This seems to be the big push in schools and the media, supported with key news stories of bullying incidents, many of which focus on sexual preference and gender issues. Tragic as these cases are, bullying is nothing new. In society, we may recognize more ways to act as bullies, especially in the realm of social networking, where there have been a number of cases that have led to desperation and suicides. It is awful.

In my early teens, instead of Facebook and You Tube, we had slam books. Notebooks with students' names on different pages would be circulated among classmates, who would anonymously state how they felt about those named. With the lack of accountability for one's words, it was possible to say horrid things about another. Then, if the student who was "slammed" got the book, that person was faced with all that malice of thought. It was extremely hurtful and often ran under the radar of teachers and administration.

In junior high school, the punches that I experienced daily for weeks as I passed a certain student in the hall between classes also ran under the radar until I stood up for myself and challenged her with the fact that I was not going to retaliate because I help no grudge against her. I said I did not understand why she was trying to get me to fight or why she had singled me out but I was not going to react. If she felt she had to continue hitting me, so be it, but I was not going to raise my hand in return. She stopped. I don't know why. Maybe I was just that strong. She then became a friend in the hallways and class rows, protecting me from other bullies. We lost touch as we moved into high school.

The business of bullying includes books being written, dramatic performances being created and staged in schools, discussions on National Public Radio and in professional development in-services. Many artists who work in schools are totally focusing on this element. Teachers are being guided to include this element of character development into their core curricula. Administrators are struggling to intervene, as are guidance counselors and social workers.

But I contend that bullying is modeled everywhere in our society yet we punish our children and youth for mirroring it in their actions. Our elected officials bully each other on the floors of the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as in state legislative bodies. This year's election cycle was nothing but bullying. It was offensive and expensive. More than $3 billion were spent on television ads alone in November elections, obscene amounts of money that could have been spent on so many deficit concerns in this economy.

We witness bullying among the pundits on both sides of the political spectrum to the point of insult to our intelligence. And the bullies are very well paid. Most of us are struggling to keep up and there are radio and television opinion makers being paid $22 - $50 million a year to shoot their mouths off.

We see bullying among adults in sports. We witness it in industry. We see it among nations and we see it among gangs in American neighborhoods, driving communities to huddle in their homes while thugs roam with guns. Then we see the NRA bully our legislators and our Supreme Court into turning a blind eye to justice and reason.

We are witnessing hypocrisy and holding our young people responsible for behaviors that are inundating our culture and experience every day. It must stop and children will not stop being bullies if adults are bullying them to "do as I say, not as I do."

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The weather is turning rapidly toward winter. The trees are baring themselves to the wind and rain. Halloween is just 10 days away and my birthday comfortably slid by last week, leaving smiles and a knowledge that I am blessed with a multitude of friends and beloveds. The garden needs to be prepped for the long winter sleep and I have lost three of my towering maples in the past 2 months. There is much light but it seems somewhat naked in the yard.

So where was that summer?! It was hot this year, that is certain. But I spent most of the season planted in front of a fan and my computer working on a book project. Five years ago, I started to notice that there were so many rich and poignant experiences in the classrooms where I was teaching that I needed to capture them. I started a list of ideas for essays. I found that list one steamy afternoon this summer as I was working on final stages of the draft of the book that will appear this winter.

Approximately 3 years ago, my dear friend, colleague, fellow poet, Quraysh Ali Lansana, suggested that perhaps the seed in my brain for a book on poetry in the classroom would be a terrific collaboration. As is frequently the case, he was correct.

We debated, we scrapped, we drafted, we outlined and researched, and we have a book! Although the planning and first stages moved slowly, once we agreed with Teachers & Writers Collaborative to create this entity and we had publishing contracts, we barged forward at a furious pace.

The summer was a marathon of writing and the most amazing experience of putting words to page from that swirl that is my brain I have ever experienced. Working in collaboration with another writer was quite remarkable as well. 

We completed the draft manuscript with 100 more pages that the contract called for but we agreed with our publisher that it is far better to have more than we need than less. This called for a major amputation after first review from T&W. We managed our "slash and burn" edit from 314 to 197 pages in 4 intense days. There is no way to describe the effort adequately. It was still insanely hot for the Northeast. We kept our tempers. We worked hard. We did it!

The full essays will be repurposed for print in trade journals in the writing, education, and arts-in-education fields. Other sections, paragraphs, sentences, whatever the excess, were either stripped out completely or saved for later. We are already formulating ideas for book two.

The comments are coming in now from our peer reviewers. I admit that I was nervous! It is my first venture in critical writing to this degree. My partner is used to this part. I am relieved to have the affirmations we are receiving, as well as some editorial guidance that will serve the final product.

I see the end of the writing process not far beyond my reach. There are so many to thank, I  cannot even start the list here, beyond my partner, our publisher/editor/ally Amy Swauger and her staff, all those who have read the drafts (both friends and peer reviewers), and the funders who have made the publication possible. I have learned a great deal about negotiation, sharing creativity, and what I believe I have learned from my work thus far. I have discovered how writing in tandem is exhilarating. And frustrating. But it is all worth the effort, and this is a serious understatement.

So now, we will finalize this project and begin a new part of the journey: the promotion of Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community. This will be a game changer in so many ways, not just for me and Q, but we believe for teachers and writers nationwide. We want to share what we have witnessed and how we have delivered poetry to students and teachers for more than three decades between us.  We aspire to providing many professional development sessions. We hope that we sell a lot of books too!

I will keep you posted and next year, I hope to do more gardening.

Favorite Poems and Getting Hooked...

On a recent conference call with colleagues regarding a creative project, one of the poets in the conversation stated that he will always remember the first time he read a poem by Alice Walker. That moment of poetry created an impression so lasting that he wound up seeking the path of poet himself.

We all have that one poem that jarred us into the art form. That poem that made us say, WOW! Or gave us reason to say, "Holy cow! You can say that?!" Or "Hokey smokes, you can write it that way?!"

When I was 13 years old, on a sunny afternoon, I discovered William Blake's "The Tyger" reprinted in some magazine and I was mesmerized by the words, all that lay behind them. I ran to the kitchen and read the poem to my Mom. This was a fabulous sharing between us. For me, I was discovering something truly magical in language. My mother was seeing that her daughter was developing not just as a budding young writer but as a thinking individual. Unfortunately, she died a few months later so she has not seen the result of that moment but I trust she knew what was coming.

The other day, I was preparing for an adult writing workshop at the Downtown Writer's Center. I wandered around the internet for tribute poems to meet the theme of the weekly writing prompt, when I landed on e.e. cummings' "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond" I had to say the poem out loud, as I have done countless times since I first read this poem in high school. This is the poem that I first truly fell in love with, a love poem itself but so much more. The perfume off the tongue as I speak the words, the caesura that pause like a moment between gusts of summer breeze, the passion so understated, the curious syntax and graphics that cummings brought to the world or poetry, all of it was familiar and comforting.

Robert Pinksy created the Favorite Poem Project from this same sort of moment. We all have a connection to poetry, just some of us were bludgeoned by poor teaching, a stern grandparent, who knows. But the poems stand the test of time and memory. Go back to that poem you first remember. Speak it to the clouds. Give yourself the gift once again. A flood of memories will ensue, giving you reasons to write new work, reasons to smile, a moment to reflect.

Master Classes! On TV!

By chance recently, I was knitting and wanted something either stimulating or amusing to watch on television while I finished a sweater project. I am an HBO subscriber so I frequently look at their special programming on demand to see what I may have missed.

To my delight, there is a new series called "Master Class." The series documents a program called "Youth Arts," which fosters young artists (it seems they are graduating seniors) throughout the US through fellowships to attend master classes with artist innovators who generously share their wisdom and experience. Twenty-seven minutes of master class for each of us as witnesses to the process.

I must say that I love discourse on artistic process. I adore "Inside the Actors Studio," I watch Shatner and Costello interview artists, I look on Ovation and Sundance for process-oriented reflections of those who make art in any form. Process is more important than genre or medium for me. And I refuse to be complacent in my learning or belief system about my art form, or art in general. I can be very parochial and I need to be on guard all the time, permitting opportunity to stretch, or recognizing it. 

The first that I watched was Edward Albee with four teen writers. I was as interested in how he shared with these eager students as I was in what he said about writing. I learned from both and was so inspired.

Next I watched Liv Ullmann with five young actors. She learned as much from them as they did from her, with very touching, honest moments. I learned from all of them.

Then came the episode with classical singers working with Placido Domingo. The glee of these students was infectious.

Last night I watched the fourth, featuring Jacques D'Ambois and five astounding dancers. His glee as they developed a new piece, as he changed the dance by changing environments, everything he shared about the relationship between time and movement moved me to a new interior environment.

Go see for yourself. If you do not have digital cable or HBO, go to the HBO web site and watch on your computer. But watch these shows. They are more than inspiration; they are professional development.