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Archive for the ‘Slice of Life’ Category

The Dovekeepers

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life on July 3, 2012| 4 Comments »

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Here it is Tuesday again. I committed to writing a blog every Tuesday for the Two Writing Teachers’ Slice of Life Tuesdays. Last week we were on our family trip to Chicago, so I skipped writing. All week I have tried to start a new post about our trip. Why is a family vacation so hard to write about? A lot happened. We had a great time. We made up a few new family sayings like “Get on the train,” and “He’s right off the Pirate Float,” but it’s a kind of woulda-hadto-been-there situation. Not easy to convey, you know.

Inspired by other slicers today (one was inspired by a billboard, the other by Hallmark magnets), I decided to write about a book I am reading. The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman is a beautiful novel set on Masada two thousand years ago. Written from the point of view of 4 women, it is rich in historical and mystical details. One of the exercises I enjoy doing with my students when they are reading a novel is a “found” poem. Using the text of the book, the writer finds a poem. Using Alice Hoffman’s beautiful language, I found this poem:

The Dovekeepers

People say our mother walked on water.
She traded rubies for a boat.
Pure, elemental, hot to the touch
given by your father’s blood.

A storm rose like stones
set out to block our way.
Our mother saw our destiny
saying water will heal
and protect us.

Mountains became our vision.
Our journey scented with fire and metal,
I could hear the beating
heart of the world,
the center of creation.

Our mother released the doves.
Those winged creatures
rise upward.

(Borrowed words from pages 293-294 of The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman)

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Fallen Oak

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , on June 19, 2012| 14 Comments »

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Ever since this old oak fell more than a week ago, I knew it had a poem to give me. I have learned and continue to learn to wait for writing. First, I walked down to the empty lot where it lay and took pictures. I played with Instagram for the one here. Then I sat with a favorite poet, Mary Oliver. Mary doesn’t fail me. I felt like we were writing side by side. I opened her book, Red Bird, to the poem Night Herons, and one line jumped off the page, “what do we know/ except that death/ is so everywhere and so entire–” Using her form of four lines per stanza and borrowing this line, I wrote a poem about the tree.

An oak tree
fell in the night
while we were sleeping,
unknowing.

Its body broken
by invisible flames,
trunk separated
from leaves, from life.

Happy resurrection fern
clings, even as
clouds form
rain again.

This keeper of stories,
survivor of hurricanes,
fell in a summer storm,
just tired, I guess.

That was the end of growing
as we know it, yet
what do we know
except that death

is so everywhere and so entire–
culling and clearing,
sometimes taking
an old friend.

One strike, one boom,
and the lot fills up
with sprawling branches.
How long

will we walk by
and watch the decomposing?
How long until the chainsaw
destroys?

Until then, I will stay
pray to this sacred sculpture
and to its sculptor:
Rise and sow again.

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On the Lake

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , on June 12, 2012| 7 Comments »

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I spent the weekend on New Castle Lake with my parents. I never get tired of this place. Every night the sun set is new and beautiful. There is a great blue heron that hangs out on the peer fishing and guarding. Canada Geese, an unwelcome invasion, litter the far side of the lake while a mother duck swims by with her brood of five in a perfect line behind her. This place is inspiration for relaxing, reading, sleeping, and writing.

Because I was at home for a book signing at Jackson’s landmark independent bookstore Lemuria, conversation often turned to writing.

At lunch on Sunday, my father offered this wisdom, “When you don’t know what to write, WRITE.”

Mom echoed that Hemingway said there is no such thing as writer’s block.

Minka, their friend and priest, said, “I sometimes have to write, ‘Stay, Minka.'”

We all value the time and commitment writing takes.

At church, I was asked by a former high school classmate, “What possessed you to write a book?” I had to laugh out loud at the question. As though to be a writer one must be possessed.

I am possessed by a love of language.
I am possessed by the belief that a teacher of writing should be a writer.
I am possessed by the story, the poem, the words that want to be written.
So, yes, I guess I am possessed.

The great blue heron guards this lake
standing on wrought-iron legs firm and tall
while his blue-grey wings fan the breeze.

Mother mallard leads her paddling through
the canal, picking at the grassy border,
feeding class for the day.

At sunset, I fish with my brother.
His casts are smooth and long,
Mine awkward and clumsy.

Cast on this side
Don’t release your thumb until you swing,
Fishing class on the dockside.

In the distance, a boat anchored with a father and son
creates a silhouette on the horizon.
We cast and draw in silence.

It has taken this long life to learn
fishing is not about catching fish.

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Delicious Research

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , on June 5, 2012| 2 Comments »

Here I go on another writing adventure with teacher bloggers. Today’s prompt was to write about a place, then go there and add details from what you experience. What was suppose to be a quick writing exercise took me all afternoon. I wrote about The Goat Lady’s Farm in St. Martinville.

On the way there, I stopped by the Farmers’ Market downtown, visited with a few people I knew, and bought a bunch of veggies: eggplant, snap beans, tomatoes, bell pepper, and cucumber. All for $6, such a bargain.

I traveled about 15 minutes down Highway 31 to Belle Ecorce Farms. I can never remember the name, so I just call it The Goat Lady’s Farm. I think I like taking field trips for writing. Here is my short piece:

Nestled down a gravel road off the Main Highway is a farm of sorts, an exotic farm, not the usual run of the mill pig, cow, and sheep farm. A South Louisiana farm down by the Bayou Teche, the goat lady’s farm where goats gather on an old tire to rest in the shade. A visitor is greeted by the Amazon Parrot who calls out, “Hello” with his head cocked upside down. The crown of yellow shines above his lime green feathers. “Hello,” I answer. He gurgles out something that sounds like, “Whatcha’ doin?”

Wanda Barras, the owner and head caretaker, shouts to a couple walking from the barn with a small goat, “If you have any more questions, just call me.” She turns to me as I write under the canopy of draping oak trees, “I’ll be right with you.”

I sit a while longer listening to the background sound of the country music and the trickle of a nearby fountain. In this small piece of heaven, Wanda makes God’s goat cheese, smooth as silk. She flavors it with herbs that grow in pots near her little shop. I’m thinking I may have to come back for some more research on another day. Wanda tells me, “Next time, bring some friends and we can pull out the table cloth and have a picnic.”

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Liza Minnelli

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged , , on May 29, 2012| 12 Comments »

Liza Minnelli is our new kitten.  She was an impulsive acquisition.  Actually, she was forced upon me by some colleagues.  On the last day of school, I went by the Special Ed office to drop off a requisition form, and, in that weakened-end-of-the-year-I-have-time-to-raise-a-kitten state, I was given a tiny kitten.  “Here, she’s yours.  Her name is Liza Minnelli.”  Two theater teachers named her.  She’s a tuxedo kitten, black with a white nose, collar, and paws.  Five weeks old and feisty, Liza is afraid of nothing.

Liza fits perfectly in the palm of your hand, like a teacup.

Every good rescue has a story.  I took off so quickly ( If I had hung around, maybe I would’ve changed my mind.) that I failed to get the whole story.  That night I messaged one of the teachers for the story.  This is what she wrote:

 A stray momma cat had a litter of four kittens near her apartment. The area is very prone to flooding and a few weeks ago, very shortly after the kittens were born, they got several days of heavy rain and thunderstorms. The mom was mostly set up at the base of a tree with the kittens, but as the flood waters started to rise, the mom took the kittens in her mouth one by one and carried them up into the tree and spent several days nested around the kittens like a bird to protect them from the thunderstorm. The kittens spent most of their early life in the tree until they began to crawl, and every once and a while a kitten would fall out of the tree. The mom would jump down, get the kitten in her mouth and climb a fence post (the kind of post you see on a barbed wire fence) then she would make a daring 4-foot leap with kitten in her mouth, into the tree. The mom continued to do this until the storms had passed. I just thought it was so crazy that the momma cat had the instinct to protect her babies, and would surround them like a momma bird would, all the while clinging to a tree for protection. “

What a great rescue story!  Now, Liza is in the loving arms of one of my daughters.  She has taken a trip to New Orleans and been introduced to dogs and children.  So far, she is a sweetheart, doing all her business in the litter box and sleeping through the night in a kitty carrier.   I haven’t regretted the impulse yet. Save a life; Make a friend.

Dixie, my daughters’ roommate’s dog, is gentle with Liza.

Liza is tolerant of child transports.

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The Big Weekend

Posted in Blessen, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , on May 22, 2012| 5 Comments »

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Summer break was dubbed as “The Big Weekend” by my husband many years ago.  Yes, he was and is jealous of this break in routine, time-to-hang-out-and-do-nothing time of year.  I look forward to the summer slowed-down pace.  I can wake up a little later, drink my coffee a little slower, and stay in grubby clothes all day long.  But after a few days, this gets old.  So I am making a mental to-do list.

1. Lunch with a friend.  What a luxury!  I usually eat lunch in a rush in the teachers’ lounge or on the road from one school to another.  I never have the time to have a leisurely lunch with a friend.  I have some dates set already and relish in the idea of catching up with a few long losts.

2. Get organized:  Realistically, this will probably not happen, but I always put it on my list hoping that at least a little more organization will come my way.

3.  My “book tour”: This is another one of my husband’s tongue-in-cheek expressions, but I do have a few book signings scheduled and hope to schedule more.

4. Writing:  Many students and friends have asked me if Blessen will have a sequel.  I bought a book “The 90 Day Novel” by Alan Watt.  Why not give it a shot?  One thing that Blessen has taught me is to not be afraid to write.  It took me a long time to learn this.  I now have the courage that I longed for all my life.  I am feeling like a Nike athlete…”Just do it.”

5. Exercise: I’ve bought new walking shoes and sports socks.  I am ready for daily walking with Charlie and whoever may want to join us.  I am committing to 7 AM.

6. Teaching:  Two writing camps and an art camp will give me three weeks with kids.  I miss my students so much when we are out of school.  The camps are hard work and lots of fun.  There are still openings in all camps if you are interested.

7. Family:  I want to relish this time with my youngest daughter who will be leaving in September for graduate school in Chicago.  We have planned a family trip to Chicago at the end of June.  I’ve never been.  People tell me it’s a great city.

8.  Reading and Renewing:  One of the reasons God created summer break was for us teachers to remember why we became teachers.  I want to do some recreational reading, but I will also read a few professional books to renew my practice and to remember why I teach.

Happy Summer!

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Skinny Odes

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged , , , on May 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

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In my classroom, things are winding down to the last day, and we are only on P in our journey through the ABCs of poetry.   Yesterday, we wrote skinny odes for the letter O.  The skinny ode lesson I used was from a master poetry teacher, the late Sandford Lyne.  Sandy was so good at front loading, getting us ready to write.  I often rush through this step.  But on Monday, I decided to take the full ride, no short cuts.  So I read a few Pablo Neruda odes along with some other models Sandy had given us.  Then I led a full brainstorm exercise.  The questions asked about everything from shape to taste with many other questions in between, 16 in all.  The kids grumbled about all the questions, but they worked.  We writers had plenty of ideas for writing our skinny odes. The trick when writing skinny odes is to fold the paper hotdog style down the center and not to write over the line.  This keeps your lines short or skinny.   I will feature my ode and one of my students, a third grade gifted writer.

Ode to a Student

O, how you look
with curiosity
at the pages
of your book,
studying, learning,
making crevices in your brain.
How can I reach in?
Will you listen to me?
Enter my room in
wonder, ready
to create, think,
question, answer,
be yourself.

Can we walk together?
Forge ahead,
make new inventions,
new ideas,
write new stories?
Together, not as parent
and child, but coach
and team.
Shout the cheer!
The world is ready
to hear you.
Be kind.
Discover horizons.
Make known
your potential.
Be the best
you can be!

Ode to a Canvas
by Kylon

White rectangle,
my hands stretch over it.
I stroke it with a dry brush,
light strokes
testing myself,
testing my painting skills.
Paint finally collides
creating sprouts of orange and red.
The rectangle’s blanketed now.
Paint everywhere,
a season on material.
Coats and layers,
swirls of yellow
leaves fly back and forth,
a fall masterpiece.

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Writing with Jack

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged , , , on May 8, 2012| 2 Comments »

This weekend our family gathered for the graduation of my youngest daughter from college.  What a whirlwind of events and emotions!  One of the treats for me was spending time with my nephew, Jack, who, at the end of his first grade year, is beginning to learn about the power of his words.  To my delight, his teacher uses writers’ workshop.  Prominently posted on the family refrigerator is Jack’s latest composition, a three-paged story about his two dogs.  He used words like “mischievous” and distinguished the two dogs as one is a “licker” and the other a “sniffer.”

Jack has his mother’s old iPhone.  Even with a cracked face, he enjoys using it to email.  So we started an email exchange.  He started with a typo that led to a little poem.  Being a poetry fan as well as a teacher, I prompted him on to create another poem.  I have transposed our exchange here.  Jack’s words are italicized.

I’m so gladys…

I’m so gladys, too, but mostly I love my Jacky.

I’m so gladys, too, but mostly I love you.

When we’re together,

We like to

Read, talk, and tell stories.

We tell our stories at night

When all is calm and quiet.

What is your favorite story?

Magic treehouse deep sea ocean.

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Grossblank Challenge

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged , , , on May 1, 2012| 8 Comments »

I kind of gave up on the 30 Day Poetry Challenge, not intentionally, but life got in the way.  I got stuck on one challenge, then just plain refused to write a poem about a car, so I quit.  I did not, however, give up on challenging my students to write a different poetic form each day.  And I write with them, so technically I am still taking the poetry challenge.

In our classroom ABC daily poem challenge, we were on G on Thursday.  The only poetic form I could find for G was a Grossblank.  Grossblank is a poem with 12 lines of 12 syllables (a gross) written in blank verse, no rhyme.  Because I thought this form was particularly challenging, I allowed them to write a quarter Grossblank, 6×6.  Also to help bait the poetry fishing hook, I gave them lists of wordgroups, a technique introduced to me by my poet-friend-mentor Sandford Lyne.  So with groups of words in hand and fingers for counting, we got to work on our poems.

Once again, my students amazed me.  My fifth grader and sixth grader took the full challenge.  Kaylie is obsessed (and that’s putting it mildly) with Hunger Games.  Her poem, while it draws on the theme of the series, can stand alone.  Colby is new to my class, but he is slowly discovering his inner poet.  His poem draws a deeper meaning while he contemplates mirage and reality, a quite sophisticated theme, I think, for a sixth grader.  If you enjoy their poetry, please leave a comment that I can share with them.  They would love to hear from you.

But What’s to Come
by Kaylie
(inspired by and dedicated to the Hunger Games)

At sunrise, she runs, barefoot, in leaves of green, words
do not come to mind. She dunks under the fence, into
the woods, where stores are not seen, and hunger isn’t
abroad. Where no trespassing takes place. Into dreams,
she runs past men and voices, beyond the breaking
dawn, into a swirl of familiar places.
She lifts her bow at a rustle, her arrow finds
a home in a rabbit’s eye. She gathers berries
of the sweetest aroma, breath in the air, hush.
Out of the woods, names are called, unpromising to
the tributes, for they must survive to be victors.
Through the darkest times, many deaths will come alive.

The Magic Touch
by Colby
Along the road in the hot summer sun, a dog,
a mirage in the dust wandering in his wake.
The heat is unbearable with the sun floating,
unforgiving in the open. No shade in the still.
Starting to feel abandoned. Far, far, away. Fear
in his soul like a pup separated, detached
from its kin. The miraged dog leading the lonely.
Walking barefoot in along the trails through thick dust.
He walks and roams in spite of hunger and fatigue.
Still he follows the dog, his wake, his destiny.
The dog is getting closer. It’s close enough to
touch.The man speeds up inching ever closer. Touch. Oasis.

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On Becoming an Author

Posted in Blessen, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , on April 24, 2012| 6 Comments »

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For a long time, I have wanted to be a writer.  I recently found my teenage diary and in it I had written some really bad rhyming poetry.  But at the bottom of the page I found this.

"I would love to be a writer if only someone would give me confidence!"

When do we let go of our dreams?  The summer following this diary entry, I volunteered for a program called “Operation Life Enrichment.”  The program was designed to enrich the lives of underprivileged children who had difficulty with reading.  That experience led me to a path of becoming a teacher.  The writer in me did not go away, but she was buried deep within.

In 1995, I had the privilege of being selected for the National Writing Project’s Summer Institute.  We were a group of fellow teachers writing about our lives and learning from each other.  The motto of the NWP, “A teacher of writing is a writer,” went straight to my heart.

One of my favorite writing project events has been an annual “writing marathon” in New Orleans led by the Southeastern Writing Project.  For three days, teacher-writers gather to be practicing writers.  In the summer of 2009, the focus was on fiction.  I spent the days with two other women.  We wrote, read, revised, and each created a fiction short story.  I began to feel like a fiction writer.

Not long after the New Orleans writing marathon, I attended a fiction workshop with Sharon Arms Doucet, author of Fiddle Fever and Alligator Sue.  The workshop took place an hour away.  As I drove Highway 31 along the Bayou Teche, the story of Blessen began in my mind.  I passed True Friend Road.  I saw a row of crape myrtle trees.

From where I stand next to the chicken coop, I can see Pawpee’s old house and the two rows of crape myrtles in full bloom lining the gravel driveway. Pawpee still trims those trees every fall with a cherry picker from his wheelchair. He says he’s topping the trees to make the blossoms fan out like a fiery bouquet.

While at the workshop, I wrote the first chapter.  On our lunch break, the owner of the restaurant retold a story that became the Piggly Wiggly scene for Chapter 2.

Fiction is born of real life, the stories we hear and the ones we imagine.  Over the years, I grew to know and love Blessen.   When I listened, she told me about her life.  I believe in her story.  I am so proud to have her come alive in my first young readers novel.  I hope one day you will come to know and love her, too.

Link to Blessen’s Facebook page.

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