Friday, December 14, 2018

Poetry Friday -- A Visit From Poets!




My class was lucky enough today to visit with Irene Latham and Charles Waters via Zoom! What a generous gift of time for Irene and Charles to answer the students' questions.

Here are two found #haikuforhope from their talk:


nothing will change if
we shut our mouths and refuse
to talk about race

(Irene's words)


writing
is telling
the truth

(Charles' words)


Last Friday, I reviewed Can I Touch Your Hair in an initial post about the conversations we've had around race in my classroom so far this year.

This week, I added more thinking about our conversations.


Laura Shovan has the Poetry Friday roundup this week.





8 comments:

  1. Bravo! Wonderful words....and you are a tremendous teacher for making sure they were heard. Well done.

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  2. As I've said before, I am sorry not to have had Irene & Charles' book when I was teaching. This is wonderful for your class, Mary Lee. I imagine they were so excited. Thanks!

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  3. I love how haiku appears everywhere, once you're in the rhythm to hear it. These are both beautiful. (And what a treat for your class!)

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  4. How lucky that your students got to visit with Irene and Charles. I bet they loved it!

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  5. So happy to hear about Irene and Charles's visit. Lucky students!

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  6. Strong and wise words and poetry from all here, thanks for all you are trying to do–and the openness of your students.

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  7. Wonderful, wise words from wonderful, wise poets. Such a joy to have them in your classroom!

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  8. I feel like 5th grade is the very best place for this book and fertile ground for these conversations (I went back and read last week's post too). I'll be fascinated to follow your journey, and also to understand what difference you find in the influence of a poem as text about race/stereotypes vs. novel or otherwise as text about race/stereotypes. I agree Kat about how a regular practice of writing in a form or rhythm tunes your ear to hear those in everyday speech.

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