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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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By - Darren Samakosky

Dear Writers Workshop,

Don’t cancel our microphones

Don’t unplug our chords

our vocals may gets silent

when a virus takes absence

When lies and common sense

conspire till they become indifference

And our abandoned classroom sits still

Dear Writers Workshop,

With your beating hearts

Your work space now

A void both filled and unfilled

Dear Writers Workshop,
you have my heart

The door is locked
and the lights are off

At the window
you can peak inside

And leaning on the podium
with pride - there we are

In mid sentence reciting

golden lines and sacred writing

Dear Writers Workshop,
Here's a last breath

we made a community a family

You my students
unconditionally becoming

Brothers and sisters

Some beg to still stay strangers

Some begin to be themselves

Dear Writers Workshop,

Thank God for you

Thank God we are alive
Thank God we had our time

I just want some one to tell me

we will one day meet again

Be good. Write on.
Mr. Samakosky

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View the clips.  Read the lyrics.  Consider the questions.

1. In what ways might “Lean on Me” be an appropriate song during the Covid -19 pandemic?

2. How do you think the people in the tunnel felt that morning?

3. How might these people’s mood have changed when everyone started
singing “Lean on Me”?

4. In what other situations might singing “Lean on Me” be helpful or appropriate?

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"Lean on Me" by the Purple Tunnel People in the Purple Tunnel of Doom!

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Learn about Bill Withers and his ethos - watch this video clip  and consider these questions.

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Learn about Bill Withers and his ethos - watch this video clip  and consider these questions.

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1. What might the phrase “Lean on Me” mean in this song?

2.  In what ways might the message of the song be important to communities outside of Withers’?

3. Can you think of a specific example of a community that might value the song’s message?

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Expressing Gratitude and Care with an Epistle piece.

Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” expresses gratitude and the importance of mutual care.  With his recent passing and the wake of the Covid-19 - we are all needing to find moments of gratitude in our life - while caring for those who are affected - and we are all affected one way or another.

1. Identify a person or group of people you might “lean on” during the Coronavirus pandemic. Examples might include healthcare professionals,
grocery clerks and stockers, delivery people, sanitation workers, public transit
employees, or teachers.

2. Write  a friendly letter to the person you chose, thanking them
for the work they do for your community. Begin with "Dear Whomever..." and be sure to to sign out with yourself. Your words and tone will be more personal in an epistle format...try it out!

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I keep reading and re-reading this poem, the fractured syntax in the first and last stanzas especially...and the imagery, and the tone, and the exigency...Recently evoked memories of walking through cow pastures in Ohio and working with farmers' wives has me reflecting on ancient wisdoms we've forgotten or left behind, and new wisdoms we're acquiring. Write something and then mess with it, mess with the word order, the DNA, the circularity (or not) but be bold. The month has sped by but the birds and the budding trees and the poems don't know that....

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I keep reading and re-reading this poem, the fractured syntax in the first and last stanzas especially...and the imagery, and the tone, and the exigency...Recently evoked memories of walking through cow pastures in Ohio and working with farmers' wives has me reflecting on ancient wisdoms we've forgotten or left behind, and new wisdoms we're acquiring. Write something and then mess with it, mess with the word order, the DNA, the circularity (or not) but be bold. The month has sped by but the birds and the budding trees and the poems don't know that....

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bySophie Cabot Black

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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An animation of Russell Edson's poem

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Here's an animation I did for the poetry foundation two years ago, with forward by the poetry foundation.

POETRY EVERYWHERE is poetry cinema, bringing together artists-poets, animators, filmmakers- in an innovative effort to present great contemporary poetry to an ever-wider audience. Produced in association with the Poetry Foundation and created by students at docUWM, a documentary media center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the university's creative writing program, these animated poems join a growing collection of films in the poetry everywhere series. The project features a range of both well-known and emerging contemporary poets, and each film exhibits its own unique visual and literary aesthetic. Animators weave the complete texts of the poems, voiced by poets and actors, through the films to explore the relationship between language and visual expression.

poet: Russell Edson

animation/design: Chris Lightbody

poetryfoundation.org/​archive/​poem.html?id=182354

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by Russell Edson

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Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his
sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son;
or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping
her shadow off a wall....

Let us consider the old woman who wore smoked cows'
tongues for shoes and walked a meadow gathering cow chips
in her apron; or a mirror grown dark with age that was given
to a blind man who spent his nights looking into it, which
saddened his mother, that her son should be so lost in
vanity....

Let us consider the man who fried roses for his dinner,
whose kitchen smelled like a burning rose garden; or the man
who disguised himself as a moth and ate his overcoat, and for
dessert served himself a chilled fedora....

Russell Edson, "Let Us Consider" from The Rooster's Wife. Copyright © 2005 by Russell Edson. Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.

Source: The Rooster's Wife (BOA Editions Ltd., 2005)

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Let Us Consider by Russell Edson | Poetry Foundation

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Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son; or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping her shadow off a wall....

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We're living our lives these days with a parallel stream of considerations for those who are outside of our four walls. Just this morning when I reached for my  coffee mug, I considered the ninety-year old woman in the hospital in New Jersey on a ventilator...was her favorite mug in her cabinet the one with the hearts on it, too? What about the 3,100 unaccompanied children in this country? How do they fall asleep at night? I wonder if that at some extent, we're all doing this--considering the lives of others as we navigate our own. Take time when you write today to consider. You might consider the lives of your students right now; you might consider the person you saw at the grocery store yesterday who scowled at you when you accidentally hedged inside of that six feet of space; you might consider your child, your neighbor with the wind chimes on the shared balcony of your apartment building, the barking dog in the distance, the faces that might match the numbers you read in the newspaper. What images and feelings come to mind when you consider them? Read and watch Russell Edson's poem "Let Us Consider" for inspiration. And please, share on Flipgrid so that we, too, may consider.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Write a love poem to someone or something you appreciate.

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On Living by Nazim Hikmet - Poems | Academy of American Poets

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Community Mentor Text
Darren Samakosky

and to you,  my young writers

My heart knows how to sit
in a quiet room

Making days into history

Allowing time to wonder artistically

writers  - you may have my heart

but my head try’s too now
to wrap itself around

My hands hold on tight
to all they can

There is poetry in an early exit

There is a gift in the incomplete

We will rise

We will ride

We will write

We will rewrite

The truth is that we see ourselves

Together and distant

Forever a well kept moment

a cancellation

a present

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Consider the following:

1. What are some things Coval praises about Chicago?
2. What are some things he
criticizes about his hometown?
3. How does he establish this difference when performing the poem?

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Kevin Coval - Chicago Has My Heart | Sofar Chicago

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Read the lyrical excerpt from the song.  Consider the following questions:

1.  How does Chance describe his
grandmother? What do you think she means to him?
2. What place or community does Chance the Rapper associate with his grandmother?  Based on the lyrics, how does Chance feel about place/person/community?

"I like my hugs with a scent
You smell like, light, gas, water, electricity rent
You sound like why the gospel choir got so tired
And his praise is daily basis so I gotta try it
You're my dream-catcher, dream team, team captain
Matter fact, I ain't seen you in a minute, lemme take my butt to church

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What different ideas do we have about what community represents?

How do the themes of the mentor texts contribute to  a positive community?

Create a poem that pays homage to your community, or an aspect of it (a person, place, thing, value etc.)

You can use “Sunday Candy” and/or "Chicago Has My Heart" as inspiration, write about a community of which
you are a part, or a particular person within that community you feel a close connection with.

Remember: a community can vary. It can be your family
(biological or chosen), your friends, your school, an extracurricular social activity,
your neighborhood, or your identity (race, sexual orientation, disability, etc.)

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Chance the Rapper

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Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment - Sunday Candy "Short Film"

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Abandoned Farmhouse by Ted Kooser

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He was a big man, says the size of his shoes

on a pile of broken dishes by the house;

a tall man too, says the length of the bed

in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,

says the Bible with a broken back

on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;

but not a man for farming, say the fields

cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall

papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves

covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,

says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.

Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves

and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.

And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.

It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house

in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields

say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars

in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.

And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard

like branches after a storm-a rubber cow,

a rusty tractor with a broken plow,

a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

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Abandoned Farmhouse by Ted Kooser | Poetry Foundation

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He was a big man, says the size of his shoes on a pile of broken dishes by the house; a tall man too, says the length of the bed in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man, says the Bible with a broken back on the floor below the window, dusty with sun; but not a man for farming, say the fields cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

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About four weeks ago, I heard Penny Kittle talk about a teacher who wrote a take-off poem using Ted Kooser's "Abandoned Farmhouse." (It's one of my favorites!) Instead of a farmhouse as her muse, though, she wrote "Abandoned Classroom." It's such an incredible idea. I can't help but think of our classrooms at the moment, bereft of bodies and sound, abandoned. I know for myself, I left in a hurry. There's papers scattered on my desk like forgotten moth wings. Books are still crammed on shelves. There's student work curling at the edges stapled on the walls. Oh, if those walls could talk. What about your classroom? What about the abandoned spaces in your life? Your students' lives? What story is being told from what's left behind? What happened there? See Ted Kooser's "Abandoned Farmhouse" for inspiration. Write. Play. See where your writing takes you.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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I was scheduled for a zoom translation effort for one of his poems, from Turkish, and I'm not sure what happened, but I'd been reading his verse and thinking about his being imprisoned for so long. The poem I'd translated was a powerful image of seeing the sun, the edge of the horizon, after being released from prison (he was a political prisoner) and sliding down the wall of the prison, sitting on the ground, just feeling the pulse of the earth, his freedom, his love for wife and family, really just being, just feeling.... And of course we're all now in confinement, many of us far more comfortable, many not around the world, but I'm reflecting on the gratitude I have for the simple things...

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On Living by Nazim Hikmet - Poems | Academy of American Poets

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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with a bit of cheating at the end!

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Have you written a question poem? What questions do you have about them? Can you compose a poem made entirely of questions?

I figured my students, who tend to have a million questions every day-both in person and virtually-would be experts at this poetry form. To inspire and mentor them, I offered them Yellow Weed by Lilian Moore along with a guiding sheet (in lieu of face-to-face instruction) encouraging them to brainstorm possible questions, to include sensory details and imagery, and to thoughtfully arrange the questions they came up with.

And their early drafts show promise. I'm still wishing for more detail, more elaboration, more figurative language, but these 8 and 9 year olds poets are becoming more and more confident writers.

And then I ended up writing my own question poem about a yellow weed-one that I like to describe as a wildflower. Wild mustard is not native to these parts, but it grows as if it is. Wild mustard in the spring-with a little water and sunshine-grows lush and tall and is a riot of yellow!

Here's my question poem-and I might have cheated since I ended with a sentence rather than a question.

Wildflowers
Who plants you by the side of the road?

Is it the wind as it picks up your wispy seeds and slings them wide?

How do you grow tall, so far over my head?

Do rain and sun grab hands and circle you with hope?

Where do you go when the sun is too hot, the ground too dry?

Can you melt back into the soil like an abandoned ice cream cone?

What keeps you coming back?

Do bees and butterflies remember your generosity and return to visit?

Why do I love you?

Tall yellow blossoms wave and sway

reminding me that after the dark and gray of winter, light and warmth will come.

®Douillard

What question poem will you write?

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Have you written a question poem? What questions do you have about them? Can you compose a poem made entirely of questions? I figured my students, who tend to have a million questions every day--both in person and virtually--would be experts at this poetry form. To inspire and mentor them, I offered them Yellow Weed...

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Today's inspiration is all those questions that run through your head.  Who, what, when , where, did you, can I, and why, why, why?

My students and I wrote question poems yesterday...under the influence of Yellow Weed by Lilian Moore. So take a look at Yellow weed and envision your own list of questions, and then craft your own question poem.

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Here's a first draft of my How To poem, taken from words in the LA Times Food Section article, "Sustenance in a Plain Pot of Rice."

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Read Joy Harjo's Poem. Notice how she uses the "How to" idea to circulate around the theme she wants to explore, coming back to the beginning and what is most important.

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Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the
hardcore. It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but
not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She
was the end of beauty. No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we
recognized, her family related to deer, if that's who she was, a people
accustomed to hearing songs in pine trees, and making them hearts.

The woman inside the woman who was to dance naked in the bar of misfits
blew deer magic. Henry jack, who could not survive a sober day, thought she
was Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head by the toilet. All
night he dreamed a dream he could not say. The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent. Now that's a miracle.
Some people see vision in a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.

This is the bar of broken survivors, the club of the shotgun, knife wound, of
poison by culture. We who were taught not to stare drank our beer. The
players gossiped down their cues. Someone put a quarter in the jukebox to
relive despair. Richard's wife dove to kill her. We had to keep her
till, while Richard secretly bought the beauty a drink.

How do I say it? In this language there are no words for how the real world
collapses. I could say it in my own and the sacred mounds would come into
focus, but I couldn't take it in this dingy envelope. So I look at the stars in
this strange city, frozen to the back of the sky, the only promises that ever
make sense.

My brother-in-law hung out with white people, went to law school with a
perfect record, quit. Says you can keep your laws, your words. And
practiced law on the street with his hands. He jimmied to the proverbial
dream girl, the face of the moon, while the players racked a new game.
He bragged to us, he told her magic words and that when she broke, became human.
But we all heard his voice crack:

What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?

That's what I'd like to know, what are we all doing in a place like this?

You would know she could hear only what she wanted to; don't we all? Left
the drink of betrayal Richard bought her, at the bar. What was she on? We all
wanted some. Put a quarter in the juke. We all take risks stepping into thin
air. Our ceremonies didn't predict this. or we expected more.

I had to tell you this, for the baby inside the girl sealed up with a lick of
hope and swimming into the praise of nations. This is not a rooming house, but
a dream of winter falls and the deer who portrayed the relatives of
strangers. The way back is deer breath on icy windows.

The next dance none of us predicted. She borrowed a chair for the stairway
to heaven and stood on a table of names. And danced in the room of children
without shoes.
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille With four hungry children and a
crop in the field.
And then she took off her clothes. She shook loose memory, waltzed with the
empty lover we'd all become.

She was the myth slipped down through dreamtime. The promise of feast we
all knew was coming. The deer who crossed through knots of a curse to find
us. She was no slouch, and neither were we, watching.

The music ended. And so does the story. I wasn't there. But I imagined her
like this, not a stained red dress with tape on her heels but the deer who
entered our dream in white dawn, breathed mist into pine trees, her fawn a
blessing of meat, the ancestors who never left.

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Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the hardcore. It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She was the end of beauty.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Student Copy by Nico

Here's to the students
the adolescents,
naive sponges of life
Soaking up every moment
every word
Every lover

Every teacher showing them what's to come
Showing them the beauty of life
Here's to students
Now not breathing
structured material
Now not living every day for expectation

Here’s to students
the new and evolved
Their hearts now aching
for curriculum
But their brains now learning to make their own path

Here’s to procrastinators
The lazy livers
Here’s to hard workers
Now students to everything they could be missing
Here’s to rebels and misfits
Blessed with time to look a themselves and reevaluate

Here’s to students
The solvers the cheaters
The literate the illiterate
The writers
The mathematicians the scientists
Forever seeking perfection in their niche

Here’s to the students of life
Hungry for wisdom
Adventurers looking for every new emotion, feeling, adrenaline rush that makes them feel
infinite

Here’s to perfectionists
Seeking purpose
Needing order in disorder
Here’s to all students
Altering their lessons
plans... of life
A lesson that must now mold them to isolated beings

Here’s to teachers
For they are students themselves
Forever learning
passing their knowledge
Forever learning
enlightening their followers
And Giving wisdom

Here’s to students
The humble ones
Always knowing
you will never know all
or be all in this world
There is always something to learn

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Here's to the Writers - Darren Samakosky

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Here's to the Writers - Darren Samakosky

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Here's to the writers who are now blessed with time - given the space to attempt to articulate  uncertainty

Here's to the writers who are now scared with time - given the space to attempt to articulate  uncertainty

Here's to the writers just beginning to trust their own voice  - with unsure words and trepidation

Here's to the writers - confident in their abilities yet doubting their purpose

Here's to the writers wanting to just be students and here's to the writers attempting to be teachers and here's to the writers who stand confident as mentors, here's to  the writers in the middle

Here's to the writers who type, and those that scribble, those that doodle, and those who rhyme

Here's to the writers who dabble in song, poetry, story, and script -
Here's to the writers who edit meticulously and here's to the writers who don't give a shit

Here's to the writers that work in solitude and here's to the writers that rely on community

Here's to the writers who keep their words in closed notebooks and here's to those who share with gift and abandon

Here's to the writers, our truth tellers, our purveyors of vulnerability and grace and hope

Here's to the writers, who in difficult times offer us reflection and introspection - inspiring vibration and love and light

Here's to the writers we were and here's to the writers we are becoming - believing that words will eventually be all that will save us and that must mean something

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The papers spool out of the printer after I turn it on, a queue of projects: a Turkish poem to translate for a zoom on Wednesday, a Cauliflower, Spinach and Chickpea pattie recipe from a FB friend/musician, where I can use chard from the garden, a list of chicken coop ideas in case this goes on forever and I don't get to travel, an obscene pizza recipe, a new facemask design (this will be the fifth one I've tried, but I think I'm sticking with the Korean pleated ones with a pocket and t-shirt ties) and b/w prints of the garden, before and after the five hours of weeding yesterday...and I reflect yet again how poetry, the poetry of our lives, the nudged or forced reflection we pause and take probably several times a day-remembering to wear a mask as we deliver greens and flowers to a neighbor whose birthday it was- and you only know because there was a drive-by car parade...the complex web of ways our lives are different, and the hopeful (yes I'm hopeful!) ways life will unfold for the better, the tragic better, but the better. Poetry is in the everyday. SO in honor of the three friends who each sent me the NYT article on Elizabeth Alexander's husband in the NYT 4/18/2020, the amazing chef and painter Ficre Ghebreyesus, I wonder whether this more than a friendly FYI, but a reminder that I too love to cook, and am a widow, and need to keep writing and yes, painting.
Take this time to reconnect with earlier sacred parts of yourself, parts perhaps you've shed into adulthood, parenthood, teacher hood...remember and cherish the vibrant and poetic aspects of your life.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Here's to the kids who were supposed to get their braces off after two long years, and now have to wait a few more months.

Here's to the kids who couldn't wait to get their driver's license, and now they check daily to see when the DMV will open.

Here's to the kids who are wondering if there will be any sort of graduation ceremony culminating 13 years of school, or if they will get to attend freshman orientation over the summer at their selected college--or if there will even be a fall semester.

Here's to the kids who are wondering if they will miss their first time as a camp counselor or employee at the Froyo stand or the internship they worked so hard to get.

Here's to the kids who were hoping to get to attend their first prom.

Here's to the kids who dreamed of going to state in track or lacrosse or baseball or show choir. Here's to the kids who wanted to put themselves out there and try something new this spring. Here's to the kids who worked hard all year to come back from an injury.

Here's to the kids who found their tribe in the band or orchestra or drama department and now feel lost without their people.

Here's to the shy boy who was working up the courage to ask the new girl out for a movie. Here's to the lonely girl who was just starting to make friends in her art class.

Here's to the kids who have studied all year for their SATs and now sit anxiously wanting to get it over and done with.

Here's to the kids who have worked hard all year to build up their GPA and now are unsure if their grades count.

And here's to the kids who miss school because it was their safe place, where they were fed, where someone showed they were valued and loved.

Here's to the kids whose lives are forever changed, forever branded with the mark of a virus that they do not fear but impacts them greatly.

We talk about big events like proms and graduations and college tours, but it's not the big things they are missing. It's the moments woven into these milestones, the imprints of these rites of passage.

We won't know the long-term damage this will have on our kids for years, so let's lift them up while we can.
Their grief is real, even if it seems small to us.

Their sadness is justified.
Their lives are changed.
May we remember their perspective is small and their feelings are big.

We can't give you back the moments, the experience, the time, but we can acknowledge it hurts.

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It's time to celebrate and honor the notion of rites of passage.  This year many of us and our students will not be able to participate in tasks and events that are have been so common and expected.  This mentor text is  essentially a list poem with a refrain - each line offering something personal and relatable. Use the same refrain or change it...Here's to the Teachers, Here's to the Writers, Here's to the Students.  And because it is Earth Day this week - why not take "Here's to the Earth" for a spin!  Try your own version of this poem.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Here is the link to my blog post, the place where Don't Go Into the Library took me. Where will it take you?

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How is it that time both stands still and seems on permanent fast forward at the same time? And in this warped dimension, I am looking for poems while also stuck in my house, my yard, my neighborhood. I'm trying to figure out where poems hide.

My latest photographic endeavor is trying to uncover which stray weed or bedraggled plant in my backyard will make an interesting photograph. Combine these two unexpected and yet enduring constraints...and here is what you get:

Where Poems Hide
This ordinary weed conjures magic.

Get close. When you do

you will discover

worlds

where miniature feathered fairy umbrellas

float

drifting along unmapped pathways

on invisible air currents

landing in cracks

on walls

in sidewalks

between mineral crusted rocks

on thick carpets of carefully groomed lawns

waiting for nature's elixir

dew drops

raindrops

sprinkler drops

to set off the chain reaction

Sturdy stems root in

toes grabbing hold

standing firm

against weather

and weed whips

until a riot of sunburst yellow

explodes

polka dotting

unsuspecting landscapes

This is the place where poems blossom

hiding behind petals

floating on a child's breath

listen closely

you'll hear

the poetry of the

dandelion

®Douillard

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How is it that time both stands still and seems on permanent fast forward at the same time? And in this warped dimension, I am looking for poems while also stuck in my house, my yard, my neighborhood. I'm trying to figure out where poems hide.

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An email today from a parent of a student also included this poem...because when you challenge students to write a poem-a-day for 30 days, everyone starts thinking about poetry.  And because time these days feels so slippery and unstable that my day to post a poetry invitation snuck up and caught me unprepared.  Yet somehow, this poem came to the rescue--and became a mentor for my own poem today too. I hope you'll find a path somewhere in these words for your own poem to meander.

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We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.

We speak words between us that we recognize
But which cannot be looked up.

They are our words.
They come from very far inside our mouths.

You and I, we are the secret citizens of the city
Inside us, and inside us

There go all the cars we have driven
And seen, there are all the people

We know and have known, there
Are all the places that are

But which used to be as well. This is where
They went. They did not disappear.

We each take a piece
Through the eye and through the ear.

It's loud inside us, in there, and when we speak
In the outside world

We have to hope that some of that sound
Does not come out, that an arm

Not reach out
In place of the tongue.

  In Mexico and Latin America, celebrating one's   Saint's day instead of one's birthday is common.  I was born in Nogales, Arizona, On the border between Mexico and the United States. The places in between places They are like little countries Themselves, with their own holidays Taken a little from everywhere. My Fourth of July is from childhood, Childhood itself a kind of country, too. It's a place that's far from me now, A place I'd like to visit again. The Fourth of July takes me there. In that childhood place and border place The Fourth of July, like everything else, It meant more than just one thing. In the United States the Fourth of July It was the United States. In Mexico it was thedía de los Refugios, The saint's day of people named Refugio. I come from a family of people with names, Real names, not-afraid names, with colors Like the fireworks: Refugio, Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo, Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto. Names that take a moment to say, Names you have to practice. These were the names of saints, serious ones, And it was right to take a moment with them. I guess that's what my family thought. The connection to saints was strong: My grandmother's name-here it comes- Her name was Refugio, And my great-grandmother's name was Refugio, And my mother-in-law's name now, It's another Refugio, Refugios everywhere, Refugios and shrimp cocktails and sodas. Fourth of July was a birthday party For all the women in my family Going way back, a party For everything Mexico, where they came from, For the other words and the green Tinted glasses my great-grandmother wore. These women were me, What I was before me, So that birthday fireworks in the evening, All for them, This seemed right. In that way the fireworks were for me, too. Still, we were in the United States now, And the Fourth of July, Well, it was the Fourth of July. But just what that meant, In this border place and time, it was a matter of opinion in my family.

In the old days of our family,
My grandmother was a young woman
Whose hair was as long as the river.
She lived with her sisters on the ranch
La Calera-The Land of the Lime- And her days were happy. But her uncle Carlos lived there too, Carlos whose soul had the edge of a knife. One day, to teach her to ride a horse, He made her climb on the fastest one, Bareback, and sit there As he held its long face in his arms. And then he did the unspeakable deed For which he would always be remembered: He called for the handsome baby Pirrín And he placed the child in her arms. With that picture of a Madonna on horseback He slapped the shank of the horse's rear leg. The horse did what a horse must, Racing full toward the bright horizon. But first he ran under theálamo trees To rid his back of this unfair weight: This woman full of tears And this baby full of love. When they reached the trees and went under, Her hair, which had trailed her, Equal in its magnificence to the tail of the horse, That hair rose up and flew into the branches As if it were a thousand arms, All of them trying to save her. The horse ran off and left her, The baby still in her arms, The two of them hanging from her hair. The baby looked only at her And did not cry, so steady was her cradle. Her sisters came running to save them. But the hair would not let go. From its fear it held on and had to be cut, All of it, from her head. From that day on, my grandmother Wore her hair short like a scream, But it was long like a river in her sleep.

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We live in secret cities And we travel unmapped roads. We speak words between us that we recognize But which cannot be looked up. They are our words. They come from very far inside our mouths.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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I loved Siggy. I loved the sound of him running on the floor upstairs and his snoring and just the feel of his breathing on my face. I loved the metallic clink and clang of his tags on the ceramic food bowl and the splash-slash-slurp of him drinking water, especially after our walks. I loved the smell of his four little paws and wet fur after a bath. A bath day was a special day for us in the sense that no other day was-a day when the tidiness of things was suspended with muddy walks and rolls in the grass and green-grey weeds turning to dirt and grit on his furry bod and then I'd sing Raffi songs to him in the bathtub, the big towel rub-a-dub would bring us closer together giving us private time to kiss kiss kiss kiss our faces, playing together, to take fragrant clean shelter from the problems of the world and just dwell in the contentment of being together in a way that's ever better than ordinary days. But more than anything, I think, I loved bath days for how he'd sit still for just a moment, anxious to get out of the bathroom but not going anywhere without his collar, his fresh bandanna, his sense of being dry and dressed, clean in his very pure being, transformed from all the goings-on outside that made us unclean. I loved bath days with Siggy for making us both better creatures and closer together than ever.

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Mentor text: I LOVED...

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From a prose piece by Frederick Buechner, it's a copy change that asks us to dig a little deeper in our memories, scouring our senses and recollections.
I'll post it below, and it repeated with the mentor text "moves" in bold. Use those to nudge your thinking. I'll record one as well, a student piece, on flip grid...a little later. My piece is below as well.
This was quite possible my students' all-time one-day exercises as it has that sense of completeness that's so satisfying.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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The Last Friday in February

Darren Samakosky

Don’t need

no leap year

I just want

to keep

you here

Near my side

for all time

Sorry

for the worry

Sorry

for the fears

Don’t need

No leap year

I just want

to keep

you here

In the last

Friday

in February

I remember

the last thing

you said

to me

overcast

clouds are wishes

you see

And

I’m missing

you

like a memory

In the last

Friday

in February

I trust

the past

but seek

a better belief

Underneath

Forgiving skies

A reprieve is

what we need

And

I’m missing

you

like a memory

Holding on

so you don’t

slip away

from me

In this last

Friday

in February

Don’t need

no leap year

I just want

to keep

you here

Near my side

for all time

Sorry

for the worry

Sorry

for the fears

Don’t need

no leap year

I just want

to keep

you here

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Line break, word choice and placement, meter, syllabic structure, rhythm, cadence, and rhyme - these all co exist within Waterfall poems. Write with these specific choices in mind or just write...and then make your choices in the editing process. See your words and lines morph and change - some will stand out and want to be more independent. Which ideas deserve their own lines. Note that all lines do no exceed three words - stand within the waterfall and see what you are able to catch!

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Mentor Text:                           The Beat of Your Own Existence by Jess Fishburn 

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Mentor Text:                           The Beat of Your Own Existence by Jess Fishburn 

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Maybe there isn’t
Something to
Be fixed
Rather something
To step into
Closing the
Door behind
You
Turning the
Golden key
And pulling it
From the
Locked door
A shiny
Token of
Your
Old life
Though
I know you
Wanted more
I watch you
Place it
In your
Breast pocket
With a smile
And a simple
Pat of the
Heart
You turn to
Walk away
Toward the
Path of
Less resistance
The only
Friction
That persistent
Notion
Your feet are
Headed toward
The ocean
Only God
Knowing
The fated
Distance
Far down
The road
I see your
Halo glowing
Both hands
Free
I hear you
Clapping
To the
Beat of
Your own
Existence

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Found Poems and examples with Georgia Heard (she's a guest poster on this particular blog link)

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Found Poems and examples with Georgia Heard (she's a guest poster on this particular blog link)

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Also, Georgia Heard created a compilation of found poems in her book The Arrow Finds Its Mark.

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Welcome to Poetry Month 2018 at No Water River!
Please take a moment to peruse the how-to below, and then dive in! Happy writing - and thank you for helping to build our collection(s)!

Remember: The Community Collections are open indefinitely, so you can visit each post at your leisure to add your poem!

Today's Guest...

is a busy keynote speaker who spends a large amount of her time helping teachers and librarians share the wonders of poetry with their students. Please welcome poet and educator ...

GEORGIA HEARD

Pick up a scrap of paper off the floor or read a sign at a gas station or look at graffiti on the subway and find poetry in these words. Found poems are like a word collage where you take existing text, reorder and refashion it, and present it as a poem.

Try It:

Scan the world and find poems hiding in a variety of sources: newspaper and magazine articles; the back of a cereal box; signs on a classroom or school wall; a dictionary; among many other places.

Read more found poems for inspiration in The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems by Georgia Heard (Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan).

COMMUNITY COLLECTION 16: FOUND POEMS

WANT TO ADD YOUR POEM?

1. Paste it into the comment section below. I will gather the poems and add them to this post. OR
2. Email it to me at renee@reneelatulippe.com and I will add it to this post (graphics welcome)!

*****

Georgia Heard is a founding member of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in New York City. She received her M.F.A. in Poetry from Columbia University.Currently, she is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and in schools around the United States and the world.

She is the author of numerous books on writing including: as one of the "12 Books Every Teacher Should Read," and her most recent book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School which was chosen by Instructor Magazine Heart Maps: Helping Students Create and Craft Authentic Student Writing.

She has published several children's poetry books including Creatures of Earth, Sea and Sky: Animal Poems (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press), Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems (Roaring Brook/Macmillan), The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems (Roaring Brook/Macmillan - CCBC Choice (Univ. of WI), Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year), and a forthcoming collection entitled Boom! Bellow! Bleat!: Animal Poems for Two or More Voices (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press).

Georgia lives in South Florida where she finds poems everywhere.

Discover more about the author and her books at .

HEART MAPS: HELPING STUDENTS CREATE AND CRAFT AUTHENTIC WRITING
How do we get students to "ache with caring" about their writing instead of mechanically stringing words together? We spend a lot of time teaching the craft of writing but we also need to devote time to helping students write with purpose and meaning. For decades, Georgia Heard has guided students into more authentic writing experiences by using heart maps to explore what we all hold inside: feelings, passions, vulnerabilities, and wonderings. In Heart Maps, Georgia shares 20 unique, multi-genre heart maps to help your students write from the heart, such as the First Time Heart Map, Family Quilt Heart Map, and People I Admire Heart Map. You'll also find extensive support for using heart maps, including:

tips for getting started with heart maps

writing ideas to jumpstart student writing in multiple genres from heart maps

suggested mentor texts to provide additional inspiration (from the author's website)

THE ARROW FINDS ITS MARK: A BOOK OF FOUND POEMS
Imagine finding poetry on a scrap of paper tossed on the floor, or on a sign at the gas station, or in graffiti scrawled on the subway wall. This is the found poem: taking existing words, phrases, and sentences from the unlikeliest of places and refashioning them as poetry. Georgia Heard invited 30+ of the best contemporary children's poets to "find" poems in ordinary places.(from the author's website)

THE WOMAN IN THIS POEM: WOMEN'S VOICES IN POETRY (ADULT)
edited by Georgia Heard

The Woman in This Poem features the work of both classic and contemporary women poets and is organized into five thematic sections, centered on the topics of love, motherhood, work, family and friends, and balance. From the outstanding to the unexpected, this essential collection of poetry will put a lump in your throat, set your soul on fire, and remind you of who you are and how you want to live your life. (from the author's website)

Don't miss a prompt! Save this calendar to your desktop.

CALENDAR OF POETS ~ APRIL 2018

Check out the poetry video library!
"Find a Poem" and prompt copyright © by Georgia Heard.
Copyright on community collection poems held by authors indicated. All rights reserved.
Other post content © 2018 Renée M. LaTulippe or as indicated. All rights reserved.
Bookshelves by Janko Ferlic via Pexels (no attribution required)

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Community Collection 16: FOUND POEMS with Georgia Heard

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Welcome to Poetry Month 2018 at No Water River! Please take a moment to peruse the how-to below, and then dive in! Happy writing - and thank you for helping to build our collection(s)! Remember: The Community Collections are open indefinitely, so you can visit each post at your leisure to add your poem!

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We are surrounded by headlines, imperatives, myths, and messages right now. Dip into emails, newspaper headlines, notes from family, grocery lists, and text messages from the past several weeks. Extract words and lines from these, take a deep breath, and cobble together a poem. Or, grab some lines from songs on your current playlist or tucked into your favorite poems and books--work with the threads of those. You can also take junk mail or magazines and cut out words, gluing a collage of words together to make a poem. If you prefer, focus on an article of intrigue to you or a printed out recipe...create black out poetry with it. Many ways to play with found poetry. Find one that excites you and please, share with us on the Flipgrid community page.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Some student writing using The Blue Between as a mentor

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Some student writing using The Blue Between as a mentor

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(and some rain too!)

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/13-4/19

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Flipcode: 316c5b00

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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You're home. Open a cabinet. Look under a bed. Explore a closet. Rifle through a junk drawer or an old shoe box of letters. Trace your finger along the curves of the vase that you inherited from your great-grandmother. What might these objects stir in you? A memory? A list? A reminder of what you value?

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In 1962, Walker Percy (1916--1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and won-dering human soul. His controversial works combined existential questioning, scientific investigation, the insight of the southern stoic, and authentic religious faith to produce a singular view of humanity's place in the cosmos that ranks among the best American political thinking.

An authoritative guide to the political thought of this celebrated yet complex American author, A Political Companion to Walker Percy includes seminal essays by Ralph C. Wood, Richard Reinsch II, and James V. Schall, S.J., as well as new analyses of Percy's view of Thomistic realism and his reaction to the American pursuit of happiness. Editors Peter Augustine Lawler and Brian A. Smith have assembled scholars of diverse perspectives who provide a necessary lens for interpreting Percy's works. This comprehensive introduction to Percy's "American Thomism" is an indispensable resource for students of American literature, culture, and politics.

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In 1962, Walker Percy (1916--1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and won-dering human soul.

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Classroom Habitat / Saturday, April 11th, 2020

Here is the house
Where it all happens
Those tender moments
Under this roof
Body and soul come together
As we come closer together
And is it happens
It happens here in this house -from Depeche Mode's "Here in this House"

On Monday, March 30th, seventh and eighth graders showed up on the Zoom screen. After checking in, we got to work with finding inspiration for writing at home. Back in 2015, I purchased George Ella Lyon's collection Many Storied House at the suggestion of one of my long-time mentors, Linda Rief (she used it as quickwrite fodder for the previously mentioned Boothbay retreat). In this collection, Lyon's poems provide invitations for writing can be hiding in our own homes. The "stuff" and rooms at home are full of memories ready to be tapped. (If you read Lyon's book cover-to-cover you'll see a wider arc of what it means to come back home as an adult.)

We started by reading and sharing noticings of Lyon's poem " Junk Drawer." From there, students left the screen with their writing tools to investigate a junk drawer, a closet or to take a gander at what was under under their bed. It was interesting to me that even in this gathering stage, these lists are poems in their own rights-it's the small stuff, the specifics-that evoke something in us as readers (the head pillow, the hockey puck, the yodeling pickle):

After this gathering stage, students returned and wrote off the page, figuring out what they might write about. We talked about purpose...would they be writing about the "stuff" collectively and what it means? Would they zero in on one object and write about its meaning, its memory? What genre would best fit what they wanted to accomplish in the piece? Below, you'll see the amalgam of lists, writing off the page, and rough draft pieces:

What's under your bed? In your closet? In your junk drawer? What do these things amount to? Why do they matter?

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Here in this House: Junk Drawers, Closets, and Other Sources of Inspiration

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Classroom Habitat / Saturday, April 11th, 2020 Here is the houseWhere it all happensThose tender momentsUnder this roofBody and soul come togetherAs we come closer togetherAnd is it happensIt happens here in this house -from Depeche Mode's "Here in this House" On Monday, March 30th, seventh and eighth graders showed up on the Zoom screen.

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This is a Google eBook of most of Lyon's book.

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In 1962, Walker Percy (1916--1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and won-dering human soul. His controversial works combined existential questioning, scientific investigation, the insight of the southern stoic, and authentic religious faith to produce a singular view of humanity's place in the cosmos that ranks among the best American political thinking.

An authoritative guide to the political thought of this celebrated yet complex American author, A Political Companion to Walker Percy includes seminal essays by Ralph C. Wood, Richard Reinsch II, and James V. Schall, S.J., as well as new analyses of Percy's view of Thomistic realism and his reaction to the American pursuit of happiness. Editors Peter Augustine Lawler and Brian A. Smith have assembled scholars of diverse perspectives who provide a necessary lens for interpreting Percy's works. This comprehensive introduction to Percy's "American Thomism" is an indispensable resource for students of American literature, culture, and politics.

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In 1962, Walker Percy (1916--1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and won-dering human soul.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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How To Be Hopeful While in Times of Uncertainty

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How To Be Hopeful While in Times of Uncertainty

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Darren Samakosky

embrace the difficulty
in times of uncertainty
we expired the warranty
and it seems like we have forgotten that we were once in control of the quality

with tomorrow not a given
we hold on to the only
we know the toll to be phony
polite behavior and etiquette
all that is meant to medicate
the hurt of the temporary
situation eventually becoming permanent

the experts will tell you
yes - the past it hurts
accept the uncertainty
put in the work
learn the right words
forgive your worst -
you know your worth -
it is all you can do to be hopeful
when things get uncertain in the world

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Use these to help you get going...

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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IMMORTAL CUPBOARD: In Search of Lorine Niedecker

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/6-4/12

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Flipgrid Community Share for the week of 4/6-4/12

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Flipcode: 9702f8c9

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Flipgrid is where social and emotional learning happens! The leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and families.

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by Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather
advised me:
learn a trade

I learned
to sit at desk
and condense

No layoff
from this
condensery

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Kinesthesis

© Cindy Jenson-Elliott 2020

Eddy shreds the world

like a mouse destroying insulation

to build a nest.

In any conversations, his slim hands

grasp some small thing,

pressing, pinching, poking and tearing

like the claws of doom

until small becomes tiny,

and tiny turns into a tornado

of paper, cloth, plastic, wax –

a swirling snowdrift of parts

that can never be reassembled

exactly the way they were.

“I don’t know why I do it,” he laughs

as he grasps a translucent pushpin

and proceeds to poke holes

in a vintage cloth and antique table.

Once, he tells me, he called home

from the front desk at school

and found, afterwards, he had shredded

a message meant for someone else.

His fingers have a life

of their own, entirely separate

from his brain.

But the hands that take away

also craft wonder –

a Milky Way of stars folded

from tiny scraps, complex masks

assembled from discarded junk,

joyful words embroidered

in lost ends of thread.

He is Shiva incarnate,

his third eye focused outward,

a garland of paper skulls

looped around his neck,

each one smiling with wild kindness

on a world he rebuilds

from broken bits.

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Five-Year-Old Boy
by Sharon Olds

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Gabriel at five is leaning on the world
the way a factory foreman leans on
a slow worker. As he talks, he holds
a kitchen strainer in his hand. At the end of
the conversation, the handle is twisted,
the mesh burst-he looks down at it
amazed. Mysterious things are always
happening in his hands. As he tells a story,
he dances backwards. Nothing is safe
near this boy. He stands on the porch, peeing
into the grass, watching a bird
fly around the house, and ends up
pissing on the front door. Afterwards he
twangs his penis. Long after
the last drops fly into the lawn,
he stands there gently rattling his dick,
his face full of intelligence,
his white, curved forehead slightly
puckered in thought, his eyes clear,
gazing out over the pond,
his mouth firm and serious;
abstractedly he shakes himself
once more
and the house collapses
to the ground behind him.

:: Sharon Olds, Satan Says (1980)

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Gabriel at five is leaning on the worldthe way a factory foreman leans ona slow worker. As he talks, he holdsa kitchen strainer in his hand. At the end ofthe conversation, the handle is twisted,the mesh burst-he looks down at itamazed. Mysterious things are alwayshappening in his hands.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

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Listen to Rudy's love poem
What or who do you love in this troubling time?

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Rudy Francisco - "To The Girl Who Works At Starbucks" @WANPOETRY

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A focus on revision
Try writing a poem in response to Al Zolynas's poem "The Zen of Housework,"  then set the poem aside for a day and revise, asking yourself: is is long enough, or too long? Are there words you would like to replace? what is the rhythm and the music of your poem?

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Around 1960 my father sits next to me on the stairs, teaching me to tie my shoelaces. I am aware of how I am matching up what I see, his hands and mine, and what I hear. I am learning how I learn...

Around 1963 we all got the Chicken Pox. I drew red dots on my sister's doll - and then tried to clean it with Windex. It turned the cloth face blue, and smeared the dots. Red and blue do not always make purple. I've never forgiven myself. She has.

In 1972 I trusted a teacher who shouldn't have been trusted. At least he stayed away from my sister.

Sometimes my sister confides the silliest things - and then we both laugh so hard we pee...

- Susan Minnicks

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...can be a curated "list" poem or creative nonfiction, "riverteeth" are the protruding lumps, the shiny logs, the throbbing memories we all have. They can be written chronologically, by theme, across a lifetime or a week...or the duration of a quarantine.
Inspired by Deborah Harding's "How I Knew Harold," *there's a journal called River Teeth...the idea of curating events in your own life can be endlessly revised, revisited...
* available online

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Spend some time this structure that invites the chance to explain the process of "How to Be.."  Be the expert on any given topic? Give instructions? Be a moment.

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Read  Al Zolynas's poem, "The Zen of Housework."
What ordinary aspect of your life does it invite you to notice and appreciate?

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by Al Zolynas

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"The Zen of Housework" was first published in The New Physics, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 1979

The poem has also been printed in the following journals and anthologies:

Cafe Solo, Series 2, Numbers 5 and 6, Fall/Winter 1980-1981: San Diego Poets, Solo Press, Atascadero CA 1981

Leaving the Bough: 50 American Poets of the Eighties, ed. Roger Gaess, International Publishers Co., Inc., New York N.Y. 10016, 1983

The Maverick Poets (Anthology), ed. Steve Kowit, Gorilla Press, Santee CA 92071, 1988

"Zen domowych zajec", translation into Polish of "The Zen of Housework," by Czeslaw Milosz

In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop, Steve Kowit, Tilbury House, 1995

A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry. ed. Czeslaw Milosz, Harcourt Brace and Co., New York, 1996

The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry, Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, W.W. Norton and Company, New York, NY 1997.

Perigee (on line) 2010

San Diego Reader, June 6, 2012

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"The Zen of Housework" was first published in The New Physics, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 1979 The poem has also been printed in the following journals and anthologies: Cafe Solo, Series 2, Numbers 5 and 6, Fall/Winter 1980-1981: San Diego Poets, Solo Press, Atascadero CA 1981 Leaving the Bough: 50 American Poets of the Eighties, ed.

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1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Listen to or read the poem below.
2. Write.
3. Share your piece on the day's Flipgrid Community Share. (Click on the green plus sign to record your video.)
4. Listen to and add a video response on other's pieces (click the green comment button).
5.Explore the resources.
6. Inspired to share a mentor poem with the entire community on this Padlet? Contact Kim.