The eighth graders were restless this afternoon. Every poem inspired a volley of verbal fire with the cannons to the right of them, cannons...

Yesterday, I read an article in the Washington Post that said that the Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading init...

This was such a sad week -- I was in a hotel all last week where the story of the killings at Virginia Tech dominated my room in a constant ...

I remember when my daughter Kelly was getting married, her husband to be, Brian, wasn't all that thrilled about going with her to pick o...

First of all -- I LOVE when teachers have kids think of questions for the author in advance. Of course we NEVER stick to the questions on th...

Ever go looking for one image and find another? I've had that happen countless times with poetry -- I start out writing about one subje...

Writing is a team sport. I know we don't mostly think of it that way, but what is a piece of writing without an audience? This realizati...

He says he was a geek in school -- not athletic or a band member. He thought he would become a poet to make himself stand out, carrying heav...

Okay. I'm still obsessing. (see previous post) It's 4AM. My brain is balled up in a fist and I can't get it to relax. This weeke...

Thirty misspent minutes. Running out the clock until 11PM, Michael and I watched a fraction of a blood dripping, roller coaster crashing, s...

In Oxford, MI. In the middle of a major blizzard. Cold hands. I stop by the local K Mart to buy gloves. I am more than familiar with K Mart...

Williamsport, PA is the birthplace of the Little League. Proudly smiling from the trophy case at Jackson Elementary was this snowman made of...

Ben reaches out to grab the teeth of a T Rex at the Cleveland Natural History Museum. As the sign says, looking down the throat of what was...

You can't get much cooler than a snowman in a beret and a yellow leopard shirt stickin ' to the grey skies with uplifted arms. No su...

White Knoll Middle looks like your typical school from the outside. Bell, flag pole, parking lot. You get the picture. But unless and until ...

This is a picture of Hector (big dog) and Suzi (little dog). They come from totally different hoods. Hector is from East 185th Street in Cl...

I don’t think there exists a parent who has ever stood civilly in line at the grocery store who has not (at least) once sworn to abandon som...

And you know what? Even thought this blog "nags me like the goblin bee that will not state its sting" (thank you emily) I haven...

When we boarded the Croatian Airlines flight from Frankfurt to Zagreb, all these men started boarding who were quite tall, high cheek bones ...

Croatia does dark like West Virginia does dark. Real dark. Mountainous dark. Winding two lane roads through total blackness. Dark. So when w...