Your Days in Poems

Ahhh.

Such a pleasure to have such wonderful treasures to share. Your days as poems were just wonderful and inspiring, and I thank you so much for the gifts this week.

Without further ado, here are your poems and other assortments:

Karen, my NWP friend, found some good news in her pocket this week.

“Good news came today
A family reunion
Is coming my way!“

Cheryl was finally able to put away the longjohns as Spring finally came to Maine.

“sunny days, warm temps
turning winter snow to spring corn snow
no mittens, but sunglasses
no longjohns, but pants
skis turning on little ball bearings
turning to mash potatoes
smiles“

Elona used a nice rhythm in her poem and it reminds her (and me) of all the things that need a-fixin’ now that the snow has melted and the seasons have changed.

“Look
the mourning doves have built their nest in the light fixture on the porch
Look
the daffodils are up and their buds are bursting with pride to bloom
Look
The grass along the fence in the back yard is a beautiful green
Look
the cycle of life has begun anew“

Amy has been part of the group who have been writing and publishing poems all week over Two Writing Teachers and I am so glad to have her here. I am also happy to report that, unlike the last two weeks, Amy did not get caught in my spam filter. You made it through!

“A week of poems
Recipes, couplets, senryus
Whirling in my mind”

Amy adds: Thanks to all the kind comments and inspiration from everyone at Two Writing Teachers Blog! Thanks also to you for hosting Day in a Sentence. I appreciate the opportunities to inspire my writing.

One of those Two Writing Teachers, Stacey, joins us this week in Day in a Sentence. And although she has been writing beautiful poetry all week, she decided to make her first foray here as a sentence (which is perfectly fine) about her holiday preparations.

“We spent hours searching for the napkins we’re positive we bought, but in the end, we had to land up buying new ones for our Passover Table.“

Sara, an inspiring teacher but probably a good pain in the butt for most administrators (I say that with friendship, knowing her as I do), provides us this poetic and engaging entry into her world.

“after my neophyte years of teaching,
you know, when i was five,
and my kindergarten classmates stared
at me with the panicky eyes of the poorly taught,
hissing, “sara, what do i do here?”
gesturing at the purple mimeograph copy
with L word pictures on it,

i’d point at the directions,
leadingly whisper,
“it has something to do with L words,”
and then bear the wrath
of mrs. kirby,
shrieking across the room from
behind
behind
behind
her desk,
“sara, keep your eyes on your own work!”

since then, i’ve been a good teacher
and endured the stupidity of my
current educational authority
with less than subtlety,
i guess.
i intimidate,
i know.

so the best gift, manna for
the big-eyed teachers under my
shrieking principals
who are
behind
behind
behind
their desks,
is the Principals’ Report Cards
i found in my mailbox today.

Due April 30th,
Comments Appreciated.

and anonymous.

i’ll tell you this –
very few L words will be used.“

Ben B. (who will host Day in a Sentence next week) proves his mettle at couplets with this poem about his uncertain future:

“I was first offered a job at Podunk-BFE
I then figured that it was the place for me.
Still, I’m unsure at which district I should get tied.
I interviewed well at White Kids’ Unified“

Jane, a blogging colleague from Slice of Life and other adventures, has just about had it with her computer. You may recognize the love-hate relationship with tech that most of us go through in the lines of her poem.

“The computer is
my friend and my enemy.
No hugs for this week.“

Bonnie has been exploring hypertextual composition this week, exploring the unknown territory, and she shares this reflection and poem. I love the poem because it is about her guitar and it made me pull out my guitar for a few strums.

This was a great week for flexing my poetry writing muscle, thanks to the challenge set down by Stacey, at her Two Writing Teachers site. I wondered if I was up to the challenge and then hypertext found its way to my screen, a la Twitter and Paul Allison’s TTT. All the stars collided and with KH’s support I tried something new and exciting on the Hypertextopia site. Here’s a poetry slice from the larger piece. What fun!
http://hypertextopia.com/library/read/362
Bonnie

In Guitarland

“My guitar sits next to me
Silent, patient, waiting

Guilty, I continue to keep
her close,
but untouched.

I am planted in my chair
using my calloused fingertips to click away

Why don’t I power down and
lift her from her dormant sadness?

We would both be happier
collaborating in music”

And here is a podcast of her piece(be patient — the first 8 seconds are silence)

Liza looks into the work of teachers with questions.

“Seeing other teachers work
fills me with inspiration
But will it be worth being gone?“

On a beautiful day like today, I send some of the sunshine and warmth to a friend, Illya, whose poem wonders where it has gone.

“April weather
It rains
It snows
The sun shines and the wind blows
I long for warmth
where are you spring?“

Jo had a haiku up her sleeve about a good teaching strategy.

“A thirty-percent
increase in lit. terms quiz grades
says the flash cards work.”

Jo then explains: My colleagues in the social studies department have been getting their students to make flash cards for information they need to know all year (and maybe before, but this is my first year working here), and I recently started doing the same with mine. All of those pesky literary terms the kids need to know in order to analyze the literature they read are usually not the most fun thing to learn. But with the flash cards, my students have been really getting into it!

They actually have fun making them and have fun using them to quiz each other. I haven’t even had to lecture about where-are-your-flash-cards. They have them! And, like my haiku says in a not-so-poetic way, the quiz grades have improved dramatically. And the reading-analysis discussions have been so much more lively! =)

I was most happy that some folks who expressed such reservations at poetry gave it a try anyway. I hope the freedom to create whatever you wanted got you writing in a new way. Anne M., for example, says she almost passed on contributing this week, but gave way to this four line gem.

“Mine was a week online learning driven
With elluminate used for pd sharing
Parents to be interviewed and verbal reports given
Blogs shown to them for student sharing“

I would like to leave you with one more thing. On Friday, my class worked on Haikus and we created a podcast for our class weblog (The Electronic Pencil) and so I wanted to share some of their voices with you. Some of the poems were very traditional and some were a bit silly (you’ll hear the pronounced giggle from one student at the very start as she wrote about some inside joke about sunglasses).

Here they are: Student Haiku Podcast

Peace (in rich collaboration),
Kevin