Reflections and ramblings about life as an educator, writer, reader, knitter, and over-thinker. Trying to do the writing only I can do.
Inspired by Molly’s Wordle poems, I thought I’d try one after my 5-guess game yesterday. Generally I get a bit nervous if I still haven’t guessed the word by guess #5, but I was too distracted by the way the words came together. I think this poem wrote itself:
The Trek
She was going on a quest—
She didn’t yet know her destination.
Tightening the straps of her pack,
She stood stock-still on the precipice,
Gazing out at the path before her.
Happy Poetry Friday!
HOW-TO HAIKU
Taught kids to haiku
They tried traditional ones
And silly ones too
*
FUNNY KID
Reluctant writer
Manages to write the best,
Funniest haikus
*
SPRING BREAK
It’s finally break
School is out — Quick! Run away!
Ready to relax
*
SOCIAL MEDIA
Deleted TikTok
It is a total time suck
Now screen time is low.
*
HYDRATE
Remember to drink
It’s important to hydrate
Gotta love water
My head at 45 degrees to the right
I fell back against the cushion
and watched the classroom spin around me
It’s day 6 of this newly-acquired vertigo
and I now believe it’s worse
than any other sickness I’ve encountered
Room shifting
tilting
my hand reaching out against a wall
to steady me
I laid there with my head back
imagined the crystals
falling
into place
one after another
Wondered
why we have crystals
in our damn ears
at all?
Today one of my students brought his writer’s notebook with him to our social studies lesson, sneaking poetic lines in between notes taken on his classmates’ presentations. Yesterday, he asked if he could bring it down to music, because he thought he might get distracted, and knew having the notebook there to write in would help him. Later, he asked if he could take it home.
“Of course,” I replied.
Because isn’t this what we as writing teachers hope for?
That a child will want to bring that notebook with them everywhere, to catch thoughts before they disappear from their minds? To capture vivid images and fierce wonderings?
Today he left his notebook at school, and he won’t be back tomorrow. As I got home, I saw an email from him saying that he left the notebook at school, asking if his sister could get it for him tomorrow morning, because he really wants to share the poems he wrote today with his mother.
“Of course,” I replied.
Of course.
This unexpected enthusiasm for our new poetry unit is magic.
Students reading their poems out loud at the end of workshop today, smiling as they read, sharing their inner worlds with their peers, receiving snaps at the end.
Oh! Let me be like my student who can’t wait to bring his notebook home, who can’t wait to put pencil to page, to put mind to words.
“Can this be a poem?”
“Can I write this in my poem?”
Of course.
Writing With Abandon 