Poetry Friday -- Prioritizing

 

image via Unsplash

It's good to be back. I got overwhelmed by online teaching and a couple of other projects that landed on my plate. I felt like something had to give, and that something was Poetry Friday. All of my writing energy needed to be directed to the other projects. The time I spent on Saturday mornings with a cup of tea and the Poetry Friday roundup would be better spent on those projects or on school work.

Thank goodness for snow days. We've had the Gift of Time three Tuesdays in a row, and my pressure valve is back to a more livable level. (The house is also just a wee bit cleaner, too.)

And thank goodness for Lent. Although neither of us is particularly religious, a friend from college and I have been using Lent as a time to set goals and cheer each other on. My goal for this year is to write a small poem every day. One haiku, one acrostic, one Golden Shovel. Just a few words. But I want to -- I NEED to -- recover my writing life...and my connection to this Poetry Friday community. Hopefully, this Lenten recharge will give me the boost I need to do a Poetry Month project in April.

Yesterday, Audre Lorde was featured in the Google Doodle, and coincidentally, was featured in my daily ancestor acknowledgement. I explained "intersectionality" to my students for the first time in my career. Then we went on to watch the episode of QED With Dr. B "What is Race?" to provide common language and baseline information for next week when we tackle our social studies standards about culture, cultural diversity, and mainstream culture. I have to get past my fear of making mistakes in these conversations, because the conversations are too important NOT to have.

Your silence will not protect you. -- Audre Lorde

Talking openly with your

students about race is necessary. Silence

is fear, and fear will

keep you frozen. You will not

grow without risk, and neither will they. You can't protect

them from hard truths, so invite them to explore and learn along with you.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021 (draft)

Ruth has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

Poetry Friday -- The Final Golden Shovel

Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right. ~Henry Ford

Blessing 

You are going to fail, whether

you want to or not, in big and small ways. You

can spend your time worrying about that, or you can believe

that failure is valuable. It’s the way we learn. You

are in charge of how you think about your mistakes. You can

embrace them, trying to fail better every day, or

you can wallow in your catastrophes. What you believe

will determine how well you

live. I can’t

predict your future, but I have a good feeling that you’re

going to be more than all right.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

In April, I wrote a golden shovel for each of my students, using a quote chosen by each student as the striking line. Only one poem was missing from the collection: mine. Here it is. Number 31. It is the blessing I bestowed upon the Hahn Squad as I sent them out into the world and off to middle school. 

Buffy has the Poetry Friday Roundup for today at Buffy's Blog.

And it's time to gather Roundup hosts for July - December. That post is here.

High Flight

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
~Kevin Durant


High Flight

The last day of school is in sight. You can’t imagine how hard

it is to release my masterpieces, say goodbye to my best work.

Launching you, I imagine the sigh of wing-beats

as you fly away, soaring with your talent,

your sense of humor, your desire to set the world right. When

you alight again next fall, don’t you dare hide your talent,

head under wing, letting others lead. Genius doesn’t

need adult plumage to rise and spiral. All genius needs is work.

And remember, the work of flight is joyful, not hard.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Word Game Wednesday

Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is not path and leave a trail.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Word Game Wednesday

What would you like to do?

Play Word Around? Rhyme Out? Bananagrams? Do not

dawdle; find a group and go

tinker with words! Play Scrabble; observe where

the

words intersect, criss-crossing a path

of letters that may

lead

to unexpected mergers. Perhaps go

online instead

and play Free Rice, where

you earn kernels of rice for nuggets of knowledge. There

is

no

guarantee, but Word Game Wednesday could have been the path

that led us to be homophone, homonym, and

homograph hunters. Words open the world. Using them, we leave

a

splendiferous trail.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Winter Memory

Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.  ~Unknown

Winter Memory*

When you consider the life

of another creature, it is is

often humbling. The temperature that day was not

much above zero. We measured

the cold by

the

frost on our scarves from our breaths.

We

were by the lake to take

winter pictures, but

we became fascinated by

the

geese in the water. After a few moments

of observation, we could see that

the cold didn’t seem to bother them. We had begun to take

our

photos when we saw it – goose breath

puffing in the cold air. Blew us completely away.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

*Mr. Wald, our classroom stool-repairer, provided the memory that became this poem.

Poetry Friday

Whatever you are, be a good one.  ~Abraham Lincoln

Poetry Friday

Pick a poem about whatever

captivates you –

endangered animals, a hotdog car, dinosaurs, or ants – you are

in charge of choosing and practicing. Be

an attentive audience for others. Then, be a

positively excellent performer. Make us sigh, or laugh and say, “Good

one!”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Poetry Friday is one of the most beloved routines in our classroom. My students start the year not knowing the names of any children's poets and end the year with favorite poets and favorite books. (I'm pretty sure someone has hidden I'm Just No Good At Rhyming so they won't have to share it!) One of my greatest hopes is that they will be able to hold onto this love of poetry!

Irene has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Live Your Poem.

Endless WInter

You're never a loser until you quit trying.  ~Mike Ditka

Endless Winter

Indoor recess AGAIN? You’re

kidding me! Spring is never

going to get here! Oh, well. Grab a

board – mancala, chess, Clue – there’s no loser

in a never-ending game. We’ll play until

…what’s that you

say? The snow has quit?

The sun is shining…or at least trying?!?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Go Ahead and Give It Your All

Life is short. Make it amazing.  ~Hugh MacLeod (gapingvoid.com)

Go Ahead and Give It Your All

Making a Valentine box is like making a life.

The amount of effort you put into it is

the amount of fun you get out of it. Don’t be short-

sighted. Use every bit of imagination to make

it

(your life or your Valentine box) amazing!

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Collaboration

We all have the same roots and we are all branches of the same tree.  ~Aang (in Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Collaboration

Testing means work silently (all by yourself) but we

are accustomed to collaboration. We know we are all

smarter when we work together, but we have

to take the

test alone. It is not the same

as (all those times) when we discovered how our (very different) roots

could lead us to common understanding. Testing is too quiet and

the air is filled with tension. We

struggle silently (on our own) until we are

all finished. At last we get our voices back and we are all

of us (once again) like branches

(grafted from many nations and cultures) of

the

(strong enough to support us all and tested by time) same

(collaboration makes us all smarter) tree.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Easier Said Than Done

Treat people the way you want to be treated.  ~The Golden Rule

Easier Said Than Done

Learn to treat

yourself with kindness, because other people

might not. Believe the

truth contained in your heart. Get out of your own way

and become the person you

were meant to be. If you want

to, you can fix what’s broken. You can be the one to

make sure every injury will be

treated.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Persona

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.  ~Einstein

Persona 

I’m interested in everything.

The world is full of ideas and wonders that

blow my mind. I can

make amazing connections, be

the one who sees what others cannot, be counted

on to be the one who does

not take a statement for granted – the one who is not

afraid to question (but also who does not necessarily

think before I put my opinion out there). However, you can count

on me to understand that everything

I do or say matters, and that

admitting my mistake counts.

I have a keen sense of humor, and although I cannot

necessarily

time my jokes accurately, I keep trying. My best might be

the Poetry Friday ant rap. That definitely counted.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Advice to Writers

Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins. ~Sharon Creech (Walk Two Moons)

Advice to Writers

Writing well is more than just words on a page. Don’t

be satisfied with your first draft. Be the one to judge

your own writing with a

critical eye. Man

up (or woman up) -- work on revising and editing until

you’ve

walked

through your piece at least two

times. If you’re writing about stars and moons,

get your facts straight. Don’t write “in

his

shoes” if what you really mean is moccasins.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Reciprocal

When you live happy, you are happy.  ~Layann

Reciprocal

The Sparkly Unicorn Award is given when

you notice someone being amazing. You

get as much joy giving it as receiving it. The sculpture will live

on the recipient’s desk for the rest of the day, making them happy

every time they look at it. You made their day, so you

are

also happy.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Late last fall, we spent a morning messing around with plaster of paris. We made discs and ornaments and pendants and other assorted creations, which we decorated with glitter, ribbon, sequins, shells, etc. One of the creations was given to me -- a disc with edges dripping glitter and a Unicorn Horn Shell jutting up out of its center. Weeks later, on a day when someone did something totally awesome that needed a spotlight, I dubbed the disc+shell The Sparkly Unicorn Award, and I bestowed the award upon the awesome child. I allowed them to keep the award on their desk for the rest of the day (getting glitter all over someone else's work for once). Since then, students have begun bestowing the award upon each other, and one girl especially (the one who dances and draws through "Luminosity") has become our Lead Noticer of Other People's Awesomeness. She has given the award more times in the last few weeks than I have since last fall. It's one thing to BE awesome, but it's another kind of awesome to shine a light on others.

This class. I think I'm already starting to miss them.

Tabatha has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference, which is what I would say my poem and post is all about this week!

Positivity

At least I tried.  ~Hugh MacLeod

Positivity

A smile is at

the heart of all that is good, and it is the least

I can do. Every single day I am a success because I can say, “I

came, I smiled, I tried.”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Persevere

This is your life. Do what you love and do it often.  ~The Holstee Manifesto

Persevere

Hard work. This

is

how you make your

dreams come true. Your life

is yours to mold like clay. Do

not wait for someone else to decide what

you

will be. Find what you love

most in life and

make it happen. Do

not be afraid to follow your dream as far as it

takes you. Just don’t forget to return home often.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Keen Observer

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keen Observer

Unless

you

bother to watch for hawks, unless you try

to

find a preying mantis hiding in the garden, you do

not know that there is something

beyond

what

is obvious and easy. You

have

to stop assuming that you have already

seen it all, mastered

it all. You

must become a keen observer or you will

never

grow.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Cookies

We measure minds by their stature. It would be better to estimate them by their beauty.  ~Joseph Joubert 

Cookies

Remember the time we

decorated cookies? There was no unit of measure

for our joy that day. Who minds

learning by

mixing icing and food coloring to make their

cookie’s stature

more massive (and of course, more beautiful)? It

was about way more than just the cookies, though. Who would

believe that such a diverse group could be

unified at Christmas? No better

way than to

share a 34-year cookie decorating tradition. Don’t under-estimate

the power of cookies to overcome differences. Let them

heal the world by

their sweetness and by their

beauty.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Growth Mindset

Super heroes are made, but heroes are born.  ~Antonio (in 365 Days of Wonder)

Growth Mindset

Think of seeds: what will someday be super

starts small. Those who will someday become heroes

often have no inkling that their tiny lives are

about to be made

into something not just big, but

mighty enough for them to become heroes.

You cannot know the good you will do. It is enough that you are

born.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

Endeavor

Do or do not. There is no try.  ~Yoda (Star Wars)

Endeavor

Whatever I do

with my life or

my life’s work, I will do

it not

because I want praise, but because there

is

a problem that needs to be solved. There is no

way of knowing if I’ll completely fix it, but I’ll roll up my sleeves and try.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

That Feeling You Get When You Solve a Hard Math Problem

Have you had a kindness? Pass it on.  ~Henry Burton

That Feeling You Get When You Solve a Hard Math Problem

The numbers click in place like a combination lock. You have

cracked the code, you

have mastered the challenge! The problem had

you cornered, but it was decimals that gave you a

way out. A mathematical kindness

was bestowed by the universe: a “Pass

Go Collect $100” card, and it

gives you the joy and energy to carry on.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018

A couple of my students had a great day in math this past week. (One was the future astronomer from Day Two's poem.) We were working on irregular volume and they got to the challenge problem -- making an irregular figure with a total target volume of 325 cubic units...with the additional self-imposed challenge of not using a 1 in their answer. So, for example, they didn't allow themselves this solution: 10x(3x10) + 5x(5x1). They were stumped at the end of math class, but later, at the end of the day, grabbed their papers out of the pile and kept working while we waited for the buses to be called. The student who gave me this quote asked, "Can we use decimals?" I answered, "Why not?!" and he promptly found a solution: 10x(3x10) + .25x(10x10).

So there's that amazing feeling you get when you solve a hard math problem, but there's also that amazing feeling you get when you have a birthday and the entire Poetry Friday community sends out best wishes! Add mine to the cascade:

Happy Birthday to the Grand Master of Children's Poetry, 

Lee Bennett Hopkins!!

Robyn has the Poetry Friday roundup and the birthday party this week at Life on the Deckle Edge.