Author Archives: dogtrax

Digital Poems from NWP’s Write Across America

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This summer, the National Writing Project hosted a series of virtual visits to Writing Project sites for writing events in its annual Write Across America project. I didn’t attend any of the virtual writing events, alas, but I did use the resources generated by each site to write and compose digital poems. I’ve shared them periodically, but I wanted to gather them in one post.

Nebraska

Georgia

Virginia

Connecticut

California

Arizona

I enjoyed the challenge of using places for inspiration, but I appreciated the resources gathered by NWP friends in each of those sites, as the breadth of images, stories, videos and other elements provided many inroads for writing.

Peace (Landscapes),
Kevin

 

Book Review: The Language Of Trees

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Subtitled A Rewilding Of Literature and Landscape, Katie Holten’s beautiful book The Language of Trees gathers together a rich tapestry of essays, poems, stories, myths, fables and more about trees.

There are pieces about tree clocks, about the oldest trees in the world, an exploration of fossil poems, philosophical musings on how trees root us to the world, and a whole lot more. Small poems are also all over the place in this book. Ross Gay opens the book with a wonderful preface, too.

Not every piece she chose here connected with me but the ones that did were magical. And what makes the book even more fascinating is that Holten has created her own tree typeface, which she uses throughout the collection, transforming poems and passages into pages of tree font.

With Write Out 2023 approaching, this book was a deep dive into the importance of trees and forests and the world.

Peace (and Roots),
Kevin

Write Out 2023 Is Coming!

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Next month, the sixth year of the Write Out project kicks off, with two weeks of place-based writing starting on October 8th. Write Out is a partnership between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service.

Learn more about specific activities and events from the most recent newsletter and then head to the Write Out site for even more information, and sign up for the free newsletters.

Peace (and Place),
Kevin

 

WMWP Workshop: Writing In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence

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Writing in the Age of AI 2023 - 1

I am helping to co-facilitate a workshop session next month on the teaching of writing in the time of Generative AI, and we hope to gather together K-12 educators and university professors to discuss the changing landscape, and collaborate on paths forward.

If you teach in Western Massachusetts, we invite you to attend. We scheduled it the day before the National Day On Writing, purposefully, so that we would remind ourselves of the human aspects of writing, even with the influx of algorithms and chat generators.

Peace (with technology),
Kevin

Write Across America Poem: Canyon Dreams

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I finally got to see the prompts from the last summer stop for the National Writing Project’s Write Across America, and the Central Arizona Writing Project focused on the Grand Canyon as its source for writing. Some other day, I am going to gather the digital poems I did this summer into one post.

Peace (and poems),
Kevin

DS106 Pledge of Creativity

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Daily Create Creative Pledge - 1

The Daily Create prompt the other day – by my friend Karen – suggested a revamping of the Pledge of Allegiance recited in schools but I went in another direction.

Peace (from the nothing),
Kevin

Gathering Morning Poems

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Unwound

With the start of school, I’ve been posting less here, but still writing small poems each morning. Here is a collection from the last week or so.

Pattern Sequencing

Kaleidoscope of Colors

Bellwether Forever

Invitation To Dance

Peace (and Poems),
Kevin

Write Out 2023: Coming In October

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Write Out 2023

Another year of Write Out is on the horizon in October (8-22) and you can learn more about the two weeks of place-based writing and inquiry — and sign up for a free newsletter — at the Write Out website.

This year’s theme is: Poetry, Prose and Parks!

Write Out is a partnership between the National Park Service and the National Writing Project.

Peace (and Parks),
Kevin