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Bayou Song is on the wall of books!
The rains had ended, the cool front came through, adding an element of celebration (like Christmas) to the Louisiana Book Festival. This year was the 15th annual book festival and the 15th awards ceremony for LA Writes, our state youth writing contest. I have been involved since the first contest and the first book festival. I always marvel at the young authors as they arrive dressed up with their whole extended families with them. It is an event for celebrating good writing and for families celebrating their authors.
My student Chloe reads her winning poem, Cool Words.
Following the wonderful awards ceremony, I offered a student writing workshop. You never really know what kind of audience to expect. I was delighted to have 3 writers join me. One was a 6-year-old who wrote and drew, then buzzed around. Her mother said, “She’s doing a lap.” Then she was back to writing and drawing. The other two girls were a sister pair. The older sister is a student at LSU. I am not accustomed to teaching college kids, but I was pleasantly surprised at how she responded to my prompts. She wrote an I am poem about the river. (Baton Rouge is located on the Mississippi River.) When I taught them about the zeno poem, she transformed her I am poem into a zeno. This was an unexpected transfer that worked well for her poem. She gave me permission to publish it here.
I am a rusted red river.
My mouth echoes
rising
flood.
I touch cities
with their
blood.
Reminder they
come from
mud.–Jami Kleinpeter
Thanks, Jami, for enriching our lives with your poem and for showing me how a simple (meant for elementary kids) prompt can be transformed into a sophisticated and profound poem.
Reflections on the Teche 