William Blake Enters the Fourth Grade

Oh, hark!  I hear the conversation leading up to the inclusion of William Blake in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Appendix of recommended literature for fourth grade.

Here’s a poem about a park.  Fourth graders like to play in the park.

Not in my neighborhood, they mostly play video games.

But it would be better if they played in the park, so let’s go with it.

Who’s the author?

William Blake.  I’ve heard of him.

THE William Blake of the 18^th century?  The nutter who espoused free love and eschewed the church?  That William Blake?

Yes, that’s the best part.  He's out of copyright. 

Didn’t he have hallucinations about talking to angels in trees and God sticking his head in his bedroom window?

Look! He made a bunch of pictures to go with his poems.  A model for students illustrating their own poems.

Luckily most of his artwork will be blocked by elementary school search engines.

We don’t have to look at his artwork, we can just talk about it.  And look here, 12,462 PhDs have written their theses on him.  This guy is a great topic for online research assignments.

Most of those papers were written about whether or not opium influenced his writing and artwork.

A cross-curricular connection for science class! 

He thought marriage was institutionalized prostitution.

That works right into our social studies unit on slavery.  Do you see any math connections here?  We might have a home run.

Look, I just don’t think this guy is very good.  Most of his rhymes are too predictable and these couplets don't work at all:

The skylark and thrush,

The birds of the bush,

or

Till the little ones, weary,

No more can be merry:

He’s quirky, I’ll grant you that.

He was insane.

Since 1820 every educated person has had to study Blake. 

Not in fourth grade alongside Ramona and The Hardy Boys.  Even his contemporaries thought he was a mediocre poet and a headcase.

That was before he was dead, what did they know?  Stop trying to buck the system.  How else will we prepare them for seventh grade where he appears again rhyming “eye” with “symmetry?” 

Can’t we find a poem more relevant to kids’ lives rather than this thing written through the eyes of two bitter geezers leering at kids in a park discussing their youth-time?

He was a free thinker, he didn’t bow to the wishes of others.

Are you saying we should include him just because he is like the honey badger?  What about poetic form?  About relevancy of content?  About his themes?

The man was English, he is old, and he is out of copyright.  What more do you want?

A picture  of a fourth grader, included here for reference purposes. 

Below, a copy of Blake'spoem, included anywhere in the elementary curriculum for purposes I cannot discern.

 

Blake, William. “The Echoing Green.”

 

The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies;

The merry bells ring

To welcome the Spring;

The skylark and thrush,

The birds of the bush,

Sing louder around

To the bells’ cheerful sound;

While our sports shall be seen

On the echoing green.

Old John, with white hair,

Does laugh away care,

Sitting under the oak,

Among the old folk.

They laugh at our play,

And soon they all say,

‘Such, such were the joys

When we all—girls and boys—

In our youth-time were seen

On the echoing green.’

Till the little ones, weary,

No more can be merry:

The sun does descend,

And our sports have an end.

Round the laps of their mothers

Many sisters and brothers,

Like birds in their nest,

Are ready for rest,

And sport no more seen

On the darkening green.

 

Violence Hurts: A Discussion Starter

The past three months we have all witnessed the horrible reports of the shooting at nearby Chardon High School, the shooting at the theater in Denver, and the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin.  Young Travon Martin was just walking home with an iced tea when he was shot.  Innumerable other cases wind through the courts and across our TV screens daily.  Add to these the various wars and uprisings and the movie heroes that shoot first and ask (or not) questions later and one almost begins to think that violence is the only way to settle disputes. Not only is it not the only way, it isn't even close to being the best option, but it sure gets all the press.

The poem I am posting here is from one of my older books.  I am hoping that teachers might use this as a possible discussion starter/writing prompt, perhaps even an impetus for on-line research. 

There was lots of discussion around the house this morning about whether the police radio is too distracting in the background.  At least the wee video has Michael and me talking about it! 

If any students do write a poem or reflection in response, I hope some will share.



A back to school poem

Here is a back to school poem for all my teacher/principal/student friends.  Or anyone who ever remembers being a student and who maybe, like me, thinks January 1st is somewhat anti-climatic.  The real new year begins in the fall. 

Poem is from my book Zombies!  Evacuate the School!  delightfully illustrated by Karen Sandstrom.

Found Poem

Shifting power in the middle
upheaval
volume of the crowd’s voice
is increasing
the seismic movement,
changing
destruction of autocracy
power to the people
potential of hope.

In a techno-cleaning frenzy, I set out to delete or put in folders all the widowed links on my laptop's desktop.  That's the part that shows when I switch on a projector in front of an unwitting audience. Like a front stoop, I wanted to sweep and tidy up a bit before opening the door to strangers.  After a busy spring, including three trips to overseas schools, it was a cluttered mess.

I would be relentless.  I would be thorough.  I promised not to save one KB that couldn't be filed in an accessible place. No duplicates.  No mercy.  I started hitting the delete button with the fury and satisfaction of a whack-a-mole ace. 

The poem above was one of the saved documents, titled inauspiciously, Version 1.  I had already deleted 4 or 5 other Version 1s (different poems).  Version 1 means that I was writing this poem with a group of students or teachers and telegraphing to them that this wouldn't be the end of this writing process.  There would be other versions to come; we didn't have to get it right the first time. 

And while I couldn't claim authorship of this wee poem, I couldn't seem to hit delete either.  It was pretty good.  Was it about teacher protests in Wisconsin?  I was there last winter.  Was it about Occupy Wall Street?  I was on the East Coast.  It took me a day of hard thinking to remember -- it was written by a group of high school students at the Western Academy of Beijing.  It was International Day and the text we used to mine the words for our poem was a Time Magazine article about the Arab Spring.

I have always (secretly) thought the term "found poem" to be kind of amusing.  What other types are there, really?  Aren't they all?  Lost poems are the ones written on the backs of envelopes and then left on the bus or that voracious pocket on the seat in front of me on an airplane.  Lost poems are always the best pieces of writing to ever to walk across the page and out of our lives. 

But this, I can honestly say, is indeed a "found poem."  Found and then found again.  Lucky me.

Bursts of Color

How does Cleveland, OH compare with Dhaka, Bangladesh?  Well, we were only gone a week on this trip, but we came home to bursts of color pushing up through last winter's grey in the front garden. 

And while Dhaka doesn't have much of a winter at least in Northern Ohio terms, they do have loads of grey.  Dust muting the greenery, grey rubble of construction (or demolition, hard to say) and heavy pollution.  But what I will remember of Dhaka will be the bursts of color.

Even women working in construction (or destruction, hard to tell) take care to wear brilliant fabrics.  This is an image to keep in mind the next time anyone feels they have a hard job.

Every rickshaw is a work of art. 

No matter where you are going in Dhaka, it seems as if you are going against traffic.  It's not so much a matter of going against the flow, but rather that the flow flows in all directions, with no traffic laws to speak of.  That is, when the traffic is moving, which it often is not.  Dhaka redefines gridlock like no other city on the planet.

Even at the International School Dhaka, you might be fooled by the grey and white uniforms.  But look closely and voila!

The brilliance comes shining through.

Happy faces, bright smiles, and welcoming hearts greeted us at ISD.  Many thanks to librarian Linda Lechasseur, Director Richard Tangye, the faculty, and the ever helpful staff. The entire ISD family was ready and eager to talk poetry.  We laughed while we worked writing poems about life and lessons.  Thank you to all of our new friends.

My School, My Toilet

When my mother was a kid, she used to proudly announce whenever her parents drove past her elementary school: "That's my school, my toilet."  This statement makes more sense if you remember that she went to a small school in then rural Zanesville, OH, with an outhouse.  Perpetuated as family stories are through telling and re-telling, when I was growing up we never referred to my school with out mentioning the toilet, even though mine came with indoor plumbing and individual stalls. 

I tried it a couple of times with my kids and they gave me those narrow-eyed stares that meant the story was just not working for them and toilet talk from Mom wasn't as nostalgically amusing as I thought it to be.

Life moves on.  My old elementary school, its worn marble staircase and toilets with wooden doors, is now a parking lot for the high school.  Today, when I think of my home school (my toilet), I think of Westerly Elementary in Bay Village, OH.  That's where my oldest daughter Katie started kindergarten (before it became an intermediate school), where Kelly attended and it is the home of a whole stack of poems, from my long ago encounter with Mrs. Woodburn that lead to The Dog Ate My Homework, to the list poem about a school in my book Zombies!   

So, a visit to Westerly is always like going home.  Thanks to the efforts of Martha Fisher, we had a spectacular visit the first week in January.  I was even able to give Mrs. Woodburn a hug.  Even though smart boards have replaced green boards, nothing has managed to replace the students love of poetry.  Hooray!

And yes, the toilets work just fine.

Antiques Made to Order

In a world where 65 year olds have no wrinkles, where Photoshop magically gives adult women the 18 inch waist Scarlett O’Hara dreamed of, and spell check makes us all appear more clever than we really are, you would think I would be used to the idea that nothing is as it appears.

Still it’s a bit of a shock to see signs in store windows here in Bali announcing, ANTIQUES MADE TO ORDER.

Reminder, trust nothing unless you buy directly from the craftsperson (or in the case of antiques, someone who attended the McKinley inauguration. 

So I bought this bag in Beijing from a woman dressed in traditional Tibetan garb, the hat, the draping, the skin darkened by years without sunscreen.  The only one of its kind in her booth.  A ratty looking booth in an open-air market.  Price, about $20 USD after a respectable negotiation, good for her, good for me.  Not a designer bag, but designed by someone and good looking.  Hand stitched.  Deep enough to carry my tech stuff.  Not exactly directly from the craftsperson, but not too many people in the food chain making money off of the crafts people.  Good deal.

I get to Bali and my friends Larry and Rai Collins take a look at the bag and say, nice bag, we bought some for friends in Thailand last year.

Not Tibet?  I ask?

No.  Thailand.  $6.

Okay.  $6 - $20, not too bad of a mark up.  Who knows how much the ladies got for all that hand stitching.  More people in the food chain than I would have liked.

So, yesterday we are in a juice bar having seriously healthy carrot/apple/ginger juice and what do we see hanging for sale?  One of kind?  Hand stitching and all?

Same bag.

$150 USD.

True story. 

Or is it?

Happy New You, 2012

Michael took this picture (okay, I begged and whined a little asking for this angle and that) in the botanical gardens in Singapore.  I was limping along and this sculpture embodied who I wanted to be.

So, this is my screen saver and pictorial inspiration for 2012. 

2012.  Riding into the second decade of this new century. 

Wheeeeeeeee!

Seeing Stars

 The fall of 2011.

 And then . . . Singapore, Beijing, Newark, Mantua, Chicago, D.C.

 Because travel is part of the job of a self-employed writer, busted pelvis or no.

Last night I was walking the three dogs and took one untangled moment to smile up at the broad panorama of stars visible through stripped trees, waving in the breeze, beckoning winter.  I was suddenly aware, I was almost not limping.  That it was high time to finally put the “fall” behind me, just as it began – seeing stars.

In my own defense, the railroad tracks were sticking up higher than the road.  On that misty Sunday morning, August 21^st one track grabbed my bike wheel and threw me to the ground, so quickly I didn’t know what happened until I blinked my eyes open to a sideways world.  That unfortunate encounter with irregular railroad tracks led to the dent in my helmet, the ambulance, the wheelchair, the walker, the cane, the promise to myself that I would get on that plane on September 15.  More stars as we flew from Cleveland through Moscow to Singapore.

Three word-filled weeks with the eighth grade, seeing more stars as kids wrote and performed their poems. 

Michael and I made so many new friends – I remember the faces and lines from poems. 

A stand out for all time: Respect does not make shadow puppets in another person’s spotlight.”  But the good lines were flying around and so fast, it is hard to name a favorite.  It makes me giggly to hear that the poetry writing has continued and the poetic spirit has grown at Singapore American School after our visit.

Nancy Johnson was the impetus behind this visit, enriching us personally and professionally by introducing us to her colleagues Bryan, Scott, Rebecca, Crystal and Brenda.  Belated thanks and hugs to all. 

Here is an observation that is a metaphor for something(not sure what), during the precise times that I was actually composing poetry with students, I don’t remember experiencing any pain.  Adrenaline or the healing powers of poetry?  Unfortunately that reprieve did not extend beyond the actual writing experiences, so we were not able to take in many of the cool things to see and do around Singapore with me hobbling around with a cane.  The cane is one I picked up in Korea, thinking it was a cool walking stick, NEVER dreaming I would actually have to use the thing.  I hope to return one day as Jane Kenyon would say, “on two strong legs.”  (Check out her poem Otherwise, available on line).

We did manage an evening boat cruise with Kate Brundage and Maggie Mutsch, friends we made through AIE and TARA in Bahrain, who have now landed in Singapore.  Small world.  A global community of educators – how lucky we are to connect and reconnect.  This picture is of a hotel, about the hugest hotel you could imagine.  I don't think that hugest is a word, but this thing is so big, it invites descriptors thought its mere existence.  And the picture below is of a museum.  Something to see on the next trip.

AND more stars in Beijing!

Well, to tell the truth, it was hard to see the sky most days we were there.  Note the haze in the photo below.  That was a pretty typical day.  And here we are, on the map in Beijing, touring with our new friend (we were old friends by the time we left, but here we were new friends) Trish McNair. 

But one night, the moon was shining so brightly Michael tried to comment on it to the taxi driver.  He got all flustered and thought we wanted to go someplace else and pulled over.  Michael whipped out his IPad and called up a picture of the moon, which made us all laugh, images pulling us past language barriers. That taxi driver is not to be confused with the drunk in the orange juice can on wheels we took back from the Wall.  That experience can be read about on Michael’s blog, check out “near death experiences.”



Hardly any city on the planet can match Beijing in terms of history.  If Williamsburg is a glimpse of the past, Beijing is looking through a telescope backwards.  Thousands of years, walls, dynasties, stories, wars, movements have all sprung from this place and to visit for a mere two weeks is only a taste of history. 

Entering the Forbidden City.

Tienanmen Square.

Chairlift up to the Great Wall.

Beijing itself is huge, 20 million humans. To put that in perspective, the population of Canada is only 34 million, and by size, Canada is the third largest country in the world. Another star to mention, the anonymous guy who caught me when I did a trust fall into his arms diving from this thing on one leg waving my cane around like I was angry with the birds.

You have heard the Great Wall is big?  You have no idea until you have tried to climb the height of it on one good leg.  But knowing the thousands of years and feet that had passed up these stairs was inspiration.

And the wall goes on and on.  A huge concrete snake that follows a mountainous path over 1300 miles.  I have heard it is the only manmade structure that can be seen from space, and it was before space exploration was even a dream.  They don't call it great for nothin'.

Other stars to mention, Alex the owner of The Bookworm, Karen and Kevin who took us shopping.  You would think that all we did was tour, but not so.  We wrote, performed and listened to poems of all shapes and sizes by poets who fit the same description.

We started with a quick two day visit with the elementary students at Western Academy of Beijing.  Elementary Librarian John Byrne lent an able and cheerful hand in making the drive-by visit to the elementary a success.

Poetry is conversational.

Sometimes poetry is emotional.



Then we moved on to the International School of Beijing where we met with upper school students.

At ISB we focused entirely on writing workshops, where students discussed, wrote, discussed, wrote and totally impressed themselves and their classmates with the quality of their creativity and eye for detail. 

For second language learners especially it helps to talk through the writing before committing pen to paper.

Sharing poetry helps us as writers and as human beings.

See the blur in the background (a teacher moving in to help another pair of writers) and the laptop open to the world?  And in the midst of all the motion, two girls sharing poetry?  This is the place we need to find -- the I need to find -- a quiet place for thought in a crazy busy world.  I don't think this challenge, finding space to think, is any worse in a city the size of Beijing than it is in my little suburb of Cleveland. A universal challenge.

Big thanks to Nadine Rosevear for the gazillion arrangement emails (by exact count) and warm reception upon arrival at ISB.  Thank you!

After our visit to ISB, we were back to Western Academy of Beijing to speak to the middle school students. On the last day of our visit, WAB was hosting an international day, a day to further understanding of other cultures and countries.  Here kids are streaming over the bridge between the upper and lower schools.

Trish, as many international teachers, has worked in schools around the globe.  She was kind enough to lend me an abaya so that we could be international queens for a day.  Can you tell who is who?

Most poets dream of reading their poems to admiring audiences.  Depending on how shy the poet and how flexible the school is, this can be a far off dream.  Luckily, Western Academy set up a mic so that students could share poetry with one another at an after school coffeehouse.

Here (to the students' delight,) a teacher and non other than the Vice Principal also came to read poetry. 

Poetry brings us together.

Michael and I were also caught reading into a microphone over the weekend at the Bookworm where we joined a Polish troupe of poets.  Talk about an international experience, the Polish poets performed in Polish with translations of their poetry projected behind them in English and Chinese.  Michael and I just did our thing in English, additional language challenged Americans that we are.

The cities, the poems and the friends.  So many images crowding my memory, jamming to get to the front like a Beijing driver.  Hard to sum up in one blog and my new year's resolution is that I will be more on top of my writing about the day to day.  Now that I look back on this past fall, I wish I had documented every moment.  I'm not sure if I was woefully behind or busily engaged.

Michael took this last photo of a man touring the Forbidden City.

A man this age in China has seen so much, revolution, famine, skyscrapers and donkey carts.  His eyes only glance over his shoulder, though.  He was touring the historical landmark, not texting or updating, but looking and learning.  As people, we have so much to learn from one another.

And, of course, Mou Mou. 

I am not doing justice to the exquisite tapestry of experience that was this past fall.  Making new year’s promises in advance to be better with documenting experiences here on my blog.

9/11

On Sunday Michael and I, along with 3 other Cleveland poets will be honored to read poems of our choosing at a Cleveland Orchestra Concert commemorating 9/11. The poems I chose were Jerusalem by Naomi Shihab Nye and Reality Demands by Wislawa Szymborska and a sonnet of my own. I am posting the poems by the other poets here because they are available elsewhere on the net. It promises to be a solemn event, but also uplifting.

Jerusalem
BY Naomi Shihab Nye

"Let's be the same wound if we must bleed.
Let's fight side by side, even if the enemy
is ourselves: I am yours, you are mine."
-Tommy Olofsson, Sweden

I'm not interested in
Who suffered the most.
I'm interested in
People getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
A stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddle: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother's doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Later his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot:
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
"I am native now."
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child's poem says,
"I don't like wars,
they end up with monuments."
He's painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.
If you tilt your head just slightly
it's ridiculous.

There's a place in my brain
Where hate won't grow.
I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.

It's late but everything comes next.

REALITY DEMANDS
BY Wislawa Szymborska

Reality demands
that we also mention this:
Life goes on.
It continues at Cannae and Borodino,
at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

There is a gas station
on a little square in Jericho,
and wet paint
on park benches in Bila Hora.
Letters fly back and forth
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a moving van passes
beneath the eye of the lion at Cheronea,
and the blooming orchards near Verdun
cannot escape
the approaching atmospheric front.

There is so much of Everything
that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.
Music pours
from the yachts moored at Actium
and couples dance on their sunlit decks.

So much is always going on,
that it must be going on all over.
Where not a stone still stands
you see the Ice Cream Man
besieged by children.
Where Hiroshima had been
Hiroshima is again
producing many products
for everyday use.

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms
of the mornings
that make waking up worthwhile.
The grass is green
on Maciejowice’s fields,
and it is studded with dew,
as is normal with grass.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields,
all grounds are battlegrounds,
those we remember
and those that are forgotten:
the birch, cedar, and fir forests, the white snow,
the yellow sands, gray gravel, the iridescent swamps,
the canyons of black defeat,
where in times of crisis,
you can cower under a bush.


Oblivious?
BY Sara Holbrook


The charred remains of one more bombed out bus.
A swat team storms, a hostage sits alone.
Another hidden camera shot of thugs.
Amber Alert! A child’s been snatched from home.

Some loner kid went postal up in Maine.
Explosive vests? Is everyone extreme?
Death threat! A woman’s clinic up in flames.
More bad news from the flat screen fear machine.

How many died from that last IED?
I can’t take more. I mean it. I am done.
The information age is killing me.
I leave to take a shower of pure sun.
Oblivious, some bird with open throat
starts up a symphony of joy and hope.

A Bunionectomy when the Pain is Just too Much

There's nothing poetical about getting your feet cut -- voluntarily. The pain really has to be too much before you present yourself at the hospital, turn over all your worldly possessions, and naked under one of those drafty robes say just do it. My pain hit that tipping point coming out of Melbourne at 4:36AM last March. Add to this the fact that like many I have had to make compromises on health insurance (a $5000 deductible). BIG decision.

Since many have asked, here's how it has gone so far:

Operation day starts at 4:30 AM. The choice between "twilight sleep" and total anesthesia is easy, KNOCK ME OUT. I don't remember waking up, Michael driving me home, or how I got into the house. Total blackout. So far so good.

First couple days: Ice bags and keeping my feet elevated above my heart keeps swelling down. Where is the throbbing pain, say pain like I had on the airplane last March? This pain is tender when touched. When I leave the toes alone, no problem. I use a borrowed walker to get back and forth to the bathroom in my stylish black surgical shoes. A word about the shoes -- they set me back in a couple of ways. They cost $60 each (not covered by insurance) and they are designed to throw me back on my heels when I stand. Michael brings me all meals and I watch waaaay too much television. Pain is about 4 on a 10 point scale. I only use the prescription pain killers at night to sleep, mostly they make me nauseous. Have to use a shower hose to wash while sitting on a shower chair, my feet wrapped up in plastic bags with rubber bands.

End of first week, Michael takes me to visit the Dr., in a wheelchair. He rewraps the feet and I get a peek. Black and blue with a red tinge gets rewrapped in an ace bandage. Still using the walker for getting around. Michael still preparing all meals.

Second week -- I start to get out -- in a wheel chair, using it kind of like a toddler does a walker. I try out the electric cart at Costco and the grocery. I learn that when you are in a wheel chair, people don't make eye contact. They come at you, catch the wheelchair in their peripheral and then purposefully look away. It is an amazing insight. I promise myself to say hello to every person in a wheelchair from now on. I can fix a quick meal (toast or chopped fruit in yogurt). Elevate, elevate, elevate. Ibuprofen for pain, which is a little uncomfortable but no where near the pain I felt before the surgery.

Third week -- Back to the dr. for exam and Xrays. No wheelchair. He says I don't need the throw back shoes any more and rewraps the feet in new tube ace bandages and gives me new black velcro shoes with flat bottoms. Three and a half weeks, I fly to San Antonio for a three day workshop. I have no trouble standing to teach for 1 hour at a time. Walking slowly through airports and of course the flying causes extra swelling. The new shoes give me blisters, so I switch to sandals with velcro, adjustable straps. Hardest challenge is descending stairs because it hurts for my feet to bend. Good news! It's okay to bathe. Feet are peeling like crazy for whatever dumb reason.

Fourth week -- Freedom! I can drive an automatic car easily, but using a clutch is tricky because I have to use my arches instead of the ball of the foot. Manage to teach two full 8 hour days, but the result is some pretty significant swelling. Incisions are completely closed and scabs mostly gone.

Fifth week -- first attempt to ride a bike goes well. Wearing hiking sandals. Descending stairs still requires thought and care, but am able to navigate the grocery and a short hike in the woods with the grandkids. Still walking stiffly and slightly reminiscent of a duck. Basically off of Ibuprofen. Incisions are smooth. Feet still too puffy to wear sneakers easily.

A friend of mine had this surgery last December and told me that she just ran a 5K. I'm not sure this will turn me into a runner, since I never was before, but hopefully in 6 months I will be free to walk in sensible shoes. Generous, heartfelt thanks to Michael for feeding and support, grudging thanks for ordering me to sit down and put my feet up.

Everyday is better than the last. Glad I got both feet done at the same time.