Backwards Day All Year Long

Dan Ferri

Some poems visit you at sunset. Some haunt you in the wee hours with Jabberwocky logic because, let's face it, anything seems logical at 3AM.  There are poems you reach for when a friend dies, when a marriage implodes, when gratitude washes away pain.

Dan Ferri's poem, Backwards Day, follows me down school hallways behind 7th graders hiding their faces in hoodies. It stands with me as I watch the kid who can't hold a pencil and whose school won't let him use a keyboard try to make a joke out of it. It sits on my knee in a kindergarten class while everyone else is sitting on the carpet.  This poem is for those who would rather cartwheel than walk, draw instead of formulate equations, those who write, know how to harmonize, and problem solve.

Holidays, snow days, and low grade fevers should never happen on the weekend.  This Saturday is Backwards day, and because of that, I was afraid it would be overlooked this year.  

You know what this list is?  It's a list of what proficiency tests do NOT measure.  I found it in a book by Gerald Bracey, On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools (Heinemann 2003, in case you are looking for some light reading).  

As we head into testing season (I know this because of schools that call asking for a visit "after the tests") I'm thinking maybe Backwards Day shouldn't be only an annual event like the 100th day of school or Dr. Seuss' birthday, but a holiday that we celebrate all year long.

Dan is a seasoned middle school teacher transplanted from Chicago to Canberra, Australia, and as such he knows schools, holidays, and isn't afraid to call out puppypoop when he sees it.  Reprinted here with permission. 

Backwards Day

Sometimes at school we have a special day

We call it backwards day

Everyone wears their clothes backwards

Or wears colors that clash

I have a modest proposal

Forget your silly backwards hats and tee shirts

Forget this stripes and checks together puppypoop

Let's get serious

Let's really shake school up

In math class, for homework

Describe the associative, distributive, and

Commutative properties

In dance

Choreograph it, dance it, show your work

Points off for clumsiness

In Social Studies, for homework

Prepare two Civil War marching songs, one North one South

Sing in four-part harmony, show your emotion

Points off for flat notes

In English, for homework

Carve a sculpture that expresses Hester Prynne's solitary courage

The cowardice of her lover

The beauty and strangeness of her child

In Science, for homework,

Bring in a broken toaster, doorknob, or wind-up toy

Fix it

You get extra credit for using the leftover parts to make something new

Points off for reading the directions

On the S.A.T.

Every one of the questions

Will be in haiku

You get two scores

One in whistling, and one in Legos

No calculators

Let's take a stroll down the hall

Let's see who is in the learning disabilities classroom now

Will you look at all those guys with pocket protectors

Sweating, slouching, and acting out

  

Hey, no one cares that you can divide fractions backwards in

your head buddy

You will stay right here and practice interpretive dance steps till

you get it right

Will you look at all those perfect spellers with bad attitudes

Look at those grammar wizards with rhythm deficit disorder

What good is spelling gonna do you

If you can't carry a tune

Toss a lariat

Or juggle?

You are going to stay right here and do the things that you can't

Over and over, and again, and again

Until you get them right,

Or until you give up

Quit school

And get a job

As a spell checker

At the A&P

~Daniel Ferri

Taking it to the Next Level

A wise philosopher (Cher?) once said that “everyday’s a new audition.”  That’s a lot of pressure!

And no time is that more evident than January 1, when we resolve something or other starting with the new year. 

In the writing and the reading, poetry gives me pause. To others I may appear motionless, but the truth is, I'm just tuning my voice.

Watch out, 2015.

From the Park Bench (it's coming!)

“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

OMG, it's coming.

The publisher (Red Giant Press) said the hard copy proof is in the mail.

This manuscript has stretched and grown over 20 years.  From my time as Public Information Officer at the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority through an uncountable number of school visits and conversations with folks, I have taken a lot of notes.  A whole lot of notes. 

There is never just one side to any story, there are always at least two and usually many more.  A fact we have seen playing out on our televisions over these past months (and years).   I don't pretend to have answers to the misunderstandings, I have just listened to the stories.

So has evolved these short poetic dialogues, two voices looking at the same subject from diverse viewpoints.   Democracy, politicking, mother instinct, privatization, welfare, and getting schooled are among the topics.  

For those who read my children's books, I thank you heartily, but advise that this is not the book for you.  This is a book for adults, and hopefully high school students.

For those who have heard my adult poetry, you will hear a familiar line here and there.  I have not borrowed from those poems, rather those poems borrowed from this manuscript, the mother-ship, that has been festering on my hard drive for years, gnawing at me.  As I recently observed to an audience at YALSA, you don't have to be crazy to write poetry, but it does help if you hear voices.

I have never been so excited to go looking for typos.

Why Do You Write Sad Poems?

Why do you write sad poems?

Defensive answer: I don't ONLY write sad poems. Did you see the one about how happiness comes hopping? Or the one about saying gross things at the dinner table? Funny stuff.  Seriously funny. Not sad. Not sad at all.

Self-conscious answer: Oh, no. That didn't make YOU sad, did it?  I'm so sorry. It's just that. . . no, seriously, I'm really really sorry.

Have had a lot of years to think about it answer: It makes me feel better. Seriously.

No Way

In a swirl of nothing
Saturday
lay
inhaling hours
of in between.
What mood is this?
Lost? Collapsed?
Left out? Just tired?
Leftover scraps
of expectation
now outgrown.
Of disappointments
overblown.
Speech bubbles
of stifled screams.
Drifting clouds.
Unticketed dreams.

Writing a poem is a way to tuck sad feelings in, kiss them on the forehead, and turn the klieg lights out on them.

Pasir Ridge International School: "Eyes twinkling in sunshine"

What’s weird, conducts electricity, and is a good citizen?

The poets of Pasir Ridge International School in Balikpapan, Indonesia, of course!

Balikpapan is a strange sounding place populated by friendly and familiar faces.  Who could forget a mascot such as the one above? I even recognized some of the faces in the assembly.  Taller bodies, bigger feet, but the same smiles.  Michael and I were here 2 years ago and were pleased as papayas to be back in this special learning place. 

Pictured here is the reading space a middle school classroom, complete with pillows and plenty of books and space in which to stretch the mind and the legs.

In Theresa Marriott's 3/4 grade classroom, we tried our hands at personification and then performed close surgery on our drafts to pare them into more precise poetry.  During our second visit with her classroom we wrote definition poems about electricity where I learned that a circuit has to be closed and cannot be polka dots.

This year there are both a K-1 and 1-2 splits at PRIS.  We were lucky enough to spend two full hours with each class -- two full hours with beginning writers is an incredible opportunity for us as we are generally limited to one 30 or 40 minute writing session with this age group at a school.  Sometimes all we get is a drive-by where we share a few poems and then are hustled off.  But being a small school has some definite advantages, with class sizes of about 10, we had time to get serious about writing and get a little goofy afterwards.

In each class we introduced writing lessons from our book High Impact Writing Clinics that had originally been conceived for students in grades four and up.  But as this is a writing school, the kids were quick to engage as we first co-constructed poems, creating our own mentor text, and then wrote independently.  We wrote about feeling weird (why not?) and talked about how important a conclusion is in our writing.

Weird

eyes rolling

arms slapping  

body shaking

skin purpling

brain bubbling

feet wiggling

ears flapping

The best part is

I’m drooling on my desk

Weird 2

Eyes blinking

Mouth talking

Feet stomping

Arms shaking

Head wiggling

Body spinning

Knees skipping

Ears shaking

Lips growling

The best part is making a silly face.

After this writing adventure, we brainstormed what it means to be a good citizen, first co-constructing the bare bones of a poem using a refrain and then going back to add in vibrant details before taking our clip boards and writing on our own.

Special thanks to Principal Seamus Marriott for the invitation, the opportunities, and the yummy meals.