Kevin’s Meandering Mind

(Poet’s note: This one is for Duke, our dog, a black lab. Sometimes, he sits there so silent, it’s like he is in meditative thought. Other times, not so much.)

Warm eyes, deep pockets
set in a canvas of black
fur, silently still.

Peace (in the dog),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: I was in a conference last week when the keynote speaker held up a couple of props: colored bendy straws. I forget now what she was saying — sorry — but I started to write a poem, inspired by the bends in the design. I was trying to pay attention … really.)

Peace (in the twist),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: It’s hard not to come away from an exciting conference around technology and writing and not be influenced by the work and talk around you, and so I was after our recent National Writing Project meeting. But I still have questions as we think about young people in this age of digital tools. I don’t think the world has sorted itself out yet. That makes things both exciting and confusing, don’t you think? So, this poem tries to capture that, and what better way than via a digital tool.)

First, the poem:

Where
will all this lead?
All these digital paths
pushing us in different directions
so that we can’t see the forest
for the trees
and therefore, we have no idea
what we have gotten ourselves into -
never mind getting ourselves out.

Then, the Prezi:

Peace (on the path),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: This is a longer poem than usual and one that I am not quite sure it works. It is inspired by a reading of the book The Numerati, which looks at how math and data is becoming more and more important as we move more of our world online. The phrases of Buckets, and Barnicles, and Butterflies stayed with me.)

In a book about data and how numbers are becoming us
as we become the math, if you can imagine such a thing,
the concept of “barnacles” and “butterflies” and “buckets” filled my head:

Buckets are us –
all of us put into digital piles by the Numerati
based on interest, habits and exploration –
I’m happy to make room in my bucket for you
if you share my routines and my algorithm.

Barnacles are some of us –
those of us who scour the Sunday news for coupons
and search for the deals so that they can pull
a daytime heist at the store in plain sight of the
anguished managers who wish to scrape them off the sides
of the cashier line.

Butterflies are some of us, too –
those of us who wander about, never showing allegiance
to a brand, or a store, or a product, just simply
an unreliable beauty moving down a wayward path
of unpredictability.

I thought about my classroom –
about who stands in which bucket:
Who is clinging to every word to know “exactly” what to do
to get the best grade possible
but never taking a chance for fear of failure;
or who it is who barely gets a glimpse of the ground
while up in flight of their own imagination
with nary a concern for anything other than the flight.

And me?
I stand here with a net filled with holes
as the ship gets weighed down
and is pushed hard into the iceberg of standardized testing.
And you can bet my bucket is full
with teachers just like you.

Listen to the podcast of the poem.

Peace (in the numbers),
Kevin

A local columnist at the regional newspaper did a nice piece last week on the 30Poems in 30Days fundraising challenge. Bob Flaherty (a novelist in his own right, by the way, with Puff) emailed me a few questions while I was away and then he checked out my voicethread and used some of what we talked about in his article.

It’s great to see the art of writing poetry on the front page of a newspaper.

Here is just the intro and then the section with me, but you can read the entire article either online at the Daily Hampshire Gazette or with this pdf link that I created.

Peace (in the news),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: Sometimes, the writing of songs comes easy. It’s as if the song were there in the guitar and just needed a doorway out. Other times? Not so easy. Those are the days when I seem to have lost the key.)

Six strings humming
on a melody
with me strumming
delicately
in hopes that a song will fall
into my lap
and write itself.

You can listen to the poem in my voicethread.

Peace (in the poems),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: This poem comes from the parent in me watching my sons go out the door to school or play. We live in a very safe neighborhood, as far as that goes, but I still worry. And the metaphor here is about me and them and the world, I guess.)

I’m not afraid to say
that every time they walk out that door,
I worry.
If only I could tie a string to their belt,
harnessing them to me
so that I could gently tug them back
when I miss them.
But out they go, tucking my fears into their backpack,
forgotten in the moment of play.

Here is the Voicethread of this week’s poems so far:

Peace (in calming the fears),
Kevin

(Poet’s note: We have more legos than I care to count. Lego heads, lego legs, lego bodies, lego … stuff. This poem was inspired by the pain of stepping on one a few days ago. They may be small but they sure do hurt.)

I stub my toe on a Lego
and rue the day we ever brought them into this house -
these tiny creatures that come alive at night
while we sleep,
only to freeze in motion when my foot hits the floor.
I wish they’d at least have the courtesy of moving
to the corner.

And, again, here is the voicethread.

Peace (with the plastic people),

Kevin

(Poet’s note: Last week, our school (like most schools) held a ceremony for Veteran’s Day and I noticed how the number of veterans in attendance continues to shrink each year. I listened to one of my students play Taps on his trumpet with our music teacher, and heard another teacher explain to our entire school the meaning of Taps in ceremony. I thought of silence.)

The bugle plays
with no notes;
only silence

Here is the Voicethread with this poem added:

Peace (in the rememberance),

Kevin

(Poet’s note: This poem came from a conversation that I had with someone about how kids can use Magnetic Fridge Poetry for writing, as I was lamenting that my new Interactive Board led to the removal of my chalkboard, where I often would stick magnetic words for students to play with. Oh well. Then, I thought about what it would mean to “lose” a word from a set and what if that word were love?)

The missing word
from the fridge
is the Love Magnet
and I wondered where it had gone
so I went searching:
Under carpets;
Inside cupboards;
Behind curtains;
Between cushions;
until I was so exhausted that I collapsed in bed
and discovered “love” right where I had left it:
Beneath your pillow – right beside me.

Here is the Voicethread, if you want to hear my voice.

Peace (in the finding of love),
Kevin