January and February are long stretches in the world of teaching. The frigid, gray days of the northeast make these teaching times even longer. When I had a classroom to myself, I always found ways to celebrate with kids to brighten up these dismal days. The celebrations always centered around stories and usually included art and cooking.
Category: Poetry
Ice Inspiration
It is time to sit down and write. Concentrate. Get your thoughts together. They scattered like leaves in a wind storm. Sit down. Think. It is time to write. You can do it, and you will. Now, sit down. I sit and stare. I play with the keys of my laptop. I pretend to write. I try to think of something. I make lists of all the things I need to do - I must do. Nothing is coming. Nothing makes sense. I seek some of my photographs. Maybe they will help me find the words. Finally, I take a breath. I surrender my mind to the images, and images form in my mind.
Power to Pause
My thoughts came in quick, short phrases. They begged to be placed into poetry. January is a perfect month for reflection; I'm able to center my thoughts when I compose poetry. Everything falls into place. I'm comforted by the rhythm of my thinking.
A Place in Winter
I have been searching for something to read these past few months. I am in the middle of listening to The Once and Future King, which I started in August. I love T.H. White‘s humor and endless knowledge of medieval history, magic, and myths. I don’t want the adventure to end, so I am reading … Continue reading A Place in Winter
One Little Word: Remember
The more I thought about choosing my OLW, the more I felt like it would be cheating to choose a phrase. I sat myself down and told myself that this was not a time to color outside the lines. This was a time to be thoughtful and deliberate. This was a time to choose just one word.
Icarus Found: A Poem Remembered
I began recreating the poem silently in my head as I drove. It was had three stanzas maybe four. I couldn’t remember the exact words, but as I recited it my head, I got closer and closer to the original poem. The rhythm of the road helped me to remember.
Writing to Surprise
Kelly Gallagher's expertise is teaching high school writing, which has no direct connection to me in my present role. I figured I would relax and listen and not worry about learning something. But of course, I was totally surprised!
A Gathering of Birds: Poems for Autumn
This time of year is a time for celebration, a time to bring friends and family together, a time to reflect for all we are grateful for. And still I feel a sense of sadness. A loss for the green and growing. A loss for summer's promise and spring's renewal. I await the winter mornings with trepidation. But her icy fingers beckon. and I know I must follow. Everything has a season.
Living a Life in Verse
It isn’t my ability to read accurately and fluently; it isn’t my proficiency in finding the main idea or making an inference, it is my love of and connection to the characters in the story. I want to crawl into their lives for a while and live their experiences. That way I become more them and less me. I am able to take on different points of view; I am able to grow in my thinking and being.
Thank a Veteran
Only then, did I start to put the traumatic pieces together and how his trauma became my trauma, not on the beaches of Okinawa, but in the suburbs of New Jersey. When my father was a soldier, PTSD was not a known disorder, and there was no help or treatment for World War II veterans.
Word Dancer: Literature, the Arts, & Education 