Finding safe online spaces for writing is invaluable to me as a poet-teacher in a small Louisiana town. During the pandemic shut down of 2020, writing kept me sane and real and present. Sarah J. Donovan, Ph.D. directs the website for teacher-writers at Ethical ELA. She is assistant professor of secondary English education at Oklahoma State University where she turned the writing we did during April 2020 into an oral history project.
With the help of colleagues, each volunteer was interviewed through a Zoom meeting and our contributed poems have been curated into a collection entitled Bridge the Distance, Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems. You can click the link to read the manuscript or order a hard copy.
I ordered a copy. No one profits from the sale of this anthology; you are paying printing costs only. I wanted to have this collection in hand to read and use with my students as mentor texts.
My contributed poems can be read here:
The Duplex of Virtual Teaching.
Eight Reasons to Take a Walk on Sunday Morning
8. Bells chime a call to worship
to empty pews echoing the song of trees.7. I’m sorry I keep taking the same path,
the same images do not grow weary of me noticing.I pick gardenias from CeCe’s side yard.
If she came out, she wouldn’t mind.6. I stop by Anne’s to view her century plant as it reaches
skyward. A century plant waits 25 years to blooming,
blooming only once in a lifetime. A lifetime
I took for granted only weeks ago.5. I can take my time.
No one will call to check on me.I’ll check the feeders:
the hummingbirds like sweet water.I’ll get to it in time.
4. I walk and walk
wondering if it will always be this way.Hollow bells pealing for no one.
No one venturing out to see anyone.
3. It may rain tomorrow. Today,
the sun shines, the birds sing,
and I don’t have to join the chorus.I’ll keep singing to myself.
2. A link was sent by email
to a video church service, one priest, one reader.The organist plays
as though the cathedral is full.Full feels scary now.
Full carries weight.
Who wants to be full?1. I close this book,
heat another cup of tea,
and find my shoes,
find my way,
fill my day,
and perhaps…Bloom!
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
Bridge the Distance, 2021
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Reflections on the Teche 