Poetry Friday -- Wistful

photo via Unsplash

It's the Poetry Sisters' last challenge for 2020: to write to the theme of "Wish I'd Been There," or to an historical event that incites wistfulness. Here's my draft.

Wistful

We live at the corner of Lincoln and Forest.

What I wouldn't give to stand here

and turn the dial of time backward,

rewind the threads of now

onto the spool of eternity,

pavement evaporating,

divisive moments in human history blurring, retreating, disappearing

as the beech-oak-hickory canopy

closes in

concealing a sky that has never known contrails.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020 (draft)

Irene has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at Live Your Poem. 

Poetry Friday -- Sand Creek Cottonwoods

Credit for photo

Sand Creek Cottonwoods

At first

the shade

of the gnarled cottonwoods

lining the dry creek bed

is a relief.

Sun blazes

in the cloudless azure sky.

At first

the rustle 

of the cottonwood leaves

in the near-constant wind

is a susurrus.

Leaf-babble

in the wide silent plains.

But suddenly

the age

of the gnarled cottonwoods

and the dates on the battleground marker

sink in.

These trees witnessed

the Sand Creek Massacre.

And now

the rustle 

of the cottonwood leaves

repeats the names of slaughtered elders, women, and children

in a dirge.

Leaf-testimony

in the wide silent plains.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Back at the end of May, The Poetry Sisters invited All the Rest of Us to join them in their monthly challenges. The challenge for June was to write a poem using the imagery of thick woods and the word susurrus. This got me thinking about how Ohio was 95% forest (actual statistic) before the Europeans got here and made this land into 90% corn and soybean farms (not an actual statistic...it feels that way, but the Internet tells me it's closer to 50%). I did some research on the bits of old growth forest that remain in Ohio (it might be worth it to visit them all), and learned that they are so old that they are aging out. The oldest (400+ years) oaks and hickories are coming to the end of their lifespans and are being replaced by maples and beeches.

Research is all well and good, but I don't have a natural affinity with thick woods because there aren't that many trees on the arid high plains of eastern Colorado where I grew up. So I was a little stuck. Then, last weekend, I got unstuck in a completely roundabout way. I attended the (virtual, of course) Inclusive STEM/CS Summit. Two of the presenters began with a slide stating, "I am presenting on land stolen from the...(insert name of tribe)." This got me thinking about the Native inhabitants of eastern Colorado. Why didn't I know who they were without asking Google? (Arapaho and Cherokee) Why didn't I learn about them in school? Why had I never heard about the Sand Creek Massacre? 

When I read that some of the cottonwoods along Sand Creek date back to the mid-1800's and so could possibly have witnessed the massacre...well, I knew I had my poem, even if the woods there aren't thick in an "East of the Mississippi" way.

Karen has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Karen's Got a Blog!

Thoughts on Teaching & Learning: Creating a Time Capsule

Over the past several weeks, I have found myself doing a lot of reflection trying to get this online teaching right.  I keep meaning to get my thoughts on paper but then get caught up in the day-to-day work of teaching in this pandemic era.  I know if I can catch my breath, there is a lot to learn and reflect on during this time. So, I decided that every day in May, I will share my thoughts on Teaching and Learning.  This is Day 8.

I've been thinking about how to help students capture this time in their life, without adding to the stress they may or may not be experiencing at home. I want to make sure that the have the opportunity to think and  make sense of all they are feeling if that is something that would be helpful for them right now. If I have learned one thing as a teacher for over 30 years, it is that students are ready to deal with things at different times and in different ways. I never want to push a child to deal with something difficult with an assignment that they are not ready to deal with.

So this week, I decided to assign a Time Capsule assignment for Social Studies.  I think this is an interesting way to have students think about how we learn about history and about primary sources of information. I know there are lots of prepackaged Time Capsule ideas out there but I wanted it to be more open-ended as I wasn't sure what each student would want to do.

So this week, I shared this assignment with students. (You probably won't be able to access the sound but you'll get the idea:-)

 I can tell by our informal conversations before read aloud today that students are really thinking hard about what to include and we've already had some great conversations around that.  Students talked about including special events that they've celebrated at home and capturing those in some way. Some students talked about including things they've learned and made. Some have been thinking about writing they may include. Some have considered what to include to show that schools were closed and learning was online.  Many were worried that they have to share this next week (our school year ends in 8 school days) and we talked about making this a living thing until the pandemic or the school closings are over.  That of course they might add things over the summer and many seemed very excited about that which tells me they see a real life purpose to this--a reason to do it beyond because it is a school assignment.

I have been thinking about what I would include in my Time Capsule if I end up creating one. I have many ideas and creating a time capsule reminds me a little bit of notebook writing--you live your life differently inside this piece of history, when you are constantly awake to what you might include, what is important to capture during these days at home. I am sure I'll get many more ideas as kids share their time capsules next week. 

The Moon

The 50th anniversary of the first moon landing has come and gone, but these books need a belated spotlight.

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
by Brian Floca
Review copy compliments of Richard Jackson Books, 2019

The Kirkus review for this revised 2019 edition:

“A fresh, expanded edition of Floca’s top-drawer tribute to the first moon landing, which won a Sibert honor in 2010. New here is an early nod to the “thousands of people” who worked behind the scenes to make the mission a success... and a much-enlarged account of Apollo 11’s return flight to Earth. Both include new art: For the first, a set of vignettes clearly depicts women and people of color playing prominent roles (including a recognizable Katherine Johnson), and for the second, the 2009 original’s two pages grow to eight, climaxed by a close-up of the command module Columbia’s furious, fiery re-entry. The narrative... remains as stately and dramatic as ever.... Minor changes in other illustrations and added or clarified details in the text add further life and luster to a soaring commemoration of our space program’s most spectacular achievement. This is the rare revised edition that adds enough new material to demand purchase. Still essential reading, more so than ever for being broader in scope and more balanced of presentation than the original.”

I can't wait to share the story of how Brian Floca revised this book to be more inclusive!

Countdown: 2979 Days to the Moon
by Suzanne Slade
illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez
Peachtree Publishing Company, 2018

This gorgeously illustrated nonfiction long-form picture-book-in-verse begins with the dream of space travel and the loss of President John F. Kennedy. Then comes Apollo 1 and the loss of the first three Apollo astronauts. Apollo 2 is grounded and plans for Apollo 3 cancelled. Apollos 4-6 are unmanned and have mixed successes. Apollo 7 takes men into space successfully. Apollo 8 flies around to the far side of the moon and back. Apollo 9 astronauts are the first to walk in space. Apollo 10 scouts a landing spot on the moon. Finally, Apollo 11 achieves the dream of men on the moon.

At the end of each chapter is more information about each of the astronauts and photographs from the mission.

This would make a fabulous read aloud (text in verse AND nonfiction) and pairs nicely with Moonshot.

Poetry Friday -- History

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Found Animals Foundation

CRICKET, ON KITCHEN FLOOR, ENTERS HISTORY
by Robert Penn Warren

History, shaped like white hen,
Walked in at kitchen door.
Beak clicked once on stone floor.
Out door walked hen then;
But will, no doubt, come again.




I won't suggest any possible parallels to The News of the Day. I'll let you chuckle to yourself and wish for whole flocks of chickens to clean up the kitchen floor.

This gem comes from You, Emperors, and Others: Poems 1957-1960 by Robert Penn Warren, the newest addition to my collection of poetry books signed by U.S. Poets Laureate.

Heidi has today's Poetry Friday roundup at My Juicy Little Universe, along with a shiny diamond of a poem written by her second graders.

Reading Without Walls

Midnight Without a Moon
by Linda Williams Jackson
HMH Books for Young Readers, 2017
review copy provided by the publisher

This was a Gene Yang "Reading Without Walls" book for me. It's a Civil Rights story, but not "just another Civil Rights story." What makes it different is the point of view in the story and the authenticity of the author.

The story is set in rural Mississippi, where a black family and community process the push for voting rights, integrated schools, and Emmett Till's death. What seems obvious and easy from the outside (who wouldn't want the opportunity to vote?) was complicated in ways a white or a northerner couldn't imagine. There is pushback about change from the older members of the community, and intra-racial racism based on the lightness or darkness of skin.

The author was born and still lives in the Mississippi Delta. She gets the characters, setting and language right in a way no one else could.

I've tagged this book YA for language and violence. I think pairing it with The Hate U Give would provide an amazing experience for readers to understand the historical context for the modern story, and would prompt rich conversations between teens of all races. Like The Hate U Give, this is a debut novel.

I was thrilled to see that Midnight Without a Moon is book one in a series! Book two comes out in January of 2018.

A Sky Full of Stars
by Linda Williams Jackson
HMH Books for Young Readers, January, 2018

Music and History, Part Two

Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War
by Debbie Levy
illustrated by Gilbert Ford
Disney Hyperion, 2017
review copy provided by the publisher

"That's amazing!" Zak said, after reading Soldier Song yesterday. "All that happened because of a single song!"

My 5th graders recently completed work on a standard that asked them to describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described. We talked about first- and secondhand accounts. Then in writing workshop, they crafted a piece of narrative nonfiction, blending researched facts (secondhand information) with invented firsthand points of view. I shared this book with them to show that the thinking they'd developed via the reading standard and their own writing are not just standards to study or hoops to jump in school, they are alive in books being published out in the "real world."

In Soldier Song, Debby Levy focuses small, on one standoff of the Civil War -- the battle at Fredricksburg and what happened within both sides and between the two sides via a musical volley across the Rappahannock River. Woven throughout the facts are snippets of actual soldiers' letters and journal entries. The woodcut illustrations perfectly invoke the mood/tone of the story.

Music and History, Part One

Stand Up and Sing! Peter Seeger, Folk Music, and the Path to Justice
by Susanna Reich
illustrated by Adam Gustavson
Bloomsbury, 2017
review copy provided by the author

After spending the month of April with the folk singer and activist Malvina Reynolds (list of posts here, or read from April 1 here), I was interested to find similarities and differences between her life and Pete Seeger's.

Both grew up in a house filled with music, and both had parents who were politically active, though Pete's parents weren't labeled Socialists, resulting in him being denied a high school diploma.

Pete and Malvina both learned from other folk singers/songwriters. They even learned from each other, having met in the late 1940's - early 1950's. It was Pete Seeger who made Malvina's song "Little Boxes" famous.

Both Pete and Malvina wrote and performed for children.

Pete Seeger went on to have a stronger voice and presence in the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War protests, and the fight for clean water. Because he lived until 2014 (Malvina died in 1978), his voice lingers more clearly in our collective memory.

Without either Malvina or Pete, American folk music would have been less of a treasure, and less of a force for good in our world. This book, Malvina's songs, and Pete's recordings can remind a new generation of the power of music to change the world.

For a closer look at Stand Up and Sing, see Jama's Poetry Friday Post at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Pennies

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Along with all of the songs she wrote about the issues of her times (still current now), Malvina Reynolds also wrote songs for children. In the documentary Love it Like A Fool, she mentioned that it irked her that men were taken seriously when they were any age, but with her white hair and her songs for children, she became known as "The Singing Grandmother." Anyone who's been listening along through this month knows without a doubt that Malvina Reynolds was much much more than a "Singing Grandmother."

Pennies

The beaded coin purse
full of loose change,
mostly pennies,
bulged on the kitchen counter
beside the mug full of leaky pens and
pencils with dried out erasers.

In the top dresser drawer
beneath silky slips
that hadn’t been worn in decades
was stashed a plastic bag of pennies.
All wheatheads,
collected because perhaps they’d become valuable.

Mom’s laudable thrift,
learned at the knee of necessity
makes my lack of frugality
appear extravagant.
Her someday was always out of reach.
Mine jingles in my hand.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller
April 9 -- Troublemaker
April 10 -- Girl Power
April 11 -- Choices
April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature
April 13 -- Not a Joke
April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

April 15 -- What is Feminism?
April 16 -- Holes
April 17 -- They Can Have Their Cake and Eat it, Too
April 18 -- We Won't Be Nice
April 19 -- Grass is Persistent
April 20 -- Ticky Tacky
April 21 -- Regrets

April 22 -- Skagit Valley Forever

April 23 -- The World's Gone Beautiful

April 24 -- Rain

April 25 -- I Live in a City

April 26 -- The Hard Work of Real Human Beings

April 27 -- Current Events

April 28 -- Pennies

Joann has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Teaching Authors.

I Live in a City

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Through her music, Malvina addressed issues of diversity and collaboration, as well as economic and labor issues. 

Riddle Poem

What is bigger than all its parts,
full to the brim of stops and starts,
more colorful than the boldest rainbow,
only silent when buried in snow,
less significant than it wants you to believe,
a problem to solve, a tragedy to grieve?

("...a city made by human hands")

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Rain

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

Another unifying topic in Malvina Reynolds' songs is the environment. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Ode to an Inch of Life-Giving Rain

Oh, Rain!
You fall so abundantly further east
but we treasure every hundredth of an inch
here on the western high plains.

Oh, Rain!
You have rescued the wheat crop,
not to mention the Russian Olives
in the windbreak on the north side of the house.

Oh, Rain!
You lift every spirit.
Are your ears burning? The inch that fell last night
is the topic of every conversation at the post office.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Ticky Tacky

For the next half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Ticky Tacky
(to the tune of "Little Boxes")

It’s the sameness, lack-of-change-ness
It’s the absence of diversity
Economic inequality
Absolute conformity

It’s a boilermaker
Never varying
So redundant
Truly tedious

It’s the absence of diversity
And it all looks just the same.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Grass Is Persistent

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Grass Is

People want to tame me or
Eradicate me. They underestimate my
Root
Structure and my
Indomitable
Spirit. I am
Tenacious. I
Exist
Not to please, but to break concrete and spread
Truth.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

We Won't Be Nice

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

We Won’t Be Nice

Cause a disruption
Form an obstruction
March and rally and chant.

Shake up the status quo
Make a line and block the flow
March and rally and chant.

Rebel with civility
Abstain from docility
March and rally and chant.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Let Them Eat Cake was recorded live in concert, November 1972.




They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

They sugar coat the truth for us,
fake the daily news,
make us look the other way.
What could they possibly lose?

They divert to keep the facts at bay,
disguise false validations,
sweeten fibs with taradiddles,
no need for vindication.

“What could we possibly lose?” they ask,
on the brink of a nuclear war.
They’re blind to even the simplest truths,
and deaf to our uproar.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Holes

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

The World in Their Pocket was recorded live in concert by KQED in 1967.

Holes

They say the world is richer,
With jobs and giant bankrolls.
But their logic’s got a hole.

They say we’ll build the pipeline,
Bother with leaks and spills later.
But their logic’s got a crater.

They say the world is safe,
In their constant Twitter spasms.
But their logic’s got a chasm.

When crater, hole and chasm
Become a vast abyss,
They’ll say, “Oops, we were remiss…”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

What is Feminism?

What is Feminism?

Some women
have the luxury of
joining a cause.
Fighting for equal rights
and equal pay.
Finding their voices,
expressing their true identities.

Other women
have the necessity of
work.
Finding the work
and doing the work.
Keeping their families fed,
running the businesses.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017





"My mother came from a long line of women who worked outside the home. Her grandmother ran a deli while her husband read Torah. Her own mother and father ran a naval tailor shop. When I was in the fifth grade, my mother’s father died, and she and my father and grandmother ran the shop together."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Not a Joke

Not a Joke

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how war creates a necessity
that strips away all the labels
previously preventing a person’s
life work?

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how the devastation of war
creates industries
and builds an economy out of
destruction?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017




“My mother was writing her dissertation when I was little and got her Ph.D. in 1939. But it was the middle of the Depression; she was Jewish, a socialist, and a woman; and she couldn’t get a job teaching. But when the Second World War broke out, she got a job on an assembly line in a bomb factory, and Bud went to work as a carpenter in a shipyard.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

My Gal, Mother Nature

“...it was while doing graduate work in English there (University of California Berkeley) that she did some student teaching. She used pop songs to teach her high school students about rhyme scheme and meter, as they were not poetry readers."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Malvina Reynolds would have been at Berkeley in the 1920's, and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was a popular song then. Perhaps it was one she used to teach about rhyme scheme and meter.

Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
Words: Sam M. Lewis and Joseph Widow Young; Music: Ray Henderson (1925)

Five foot two, eyes of blue,
but oh, what those five foot could do:
has anybody seen my gal?

Turned-up nose, turned-down hose
Flapper? Yes sir, one of those
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now, if you run into
a five-foot-two
covered with fur,
Diamond rings,
and all those things,
Bet your life it isn't her

But could she love, could she woo!
Could she, could she, could she coo!
Has anybody seen my gal?




My Gal, Mother Nature

Birds and bees, rocks and trees
Oh the breeze and green green leaves
Has anybody seen my gal?

Skies of blue, rivers too
Nature? Yes we need her hues
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now if the skies are hazed
Parks are paved
Trash everywhere,
Species dead
Sewage spread
Bet your life there’s no clean air

The temps are high, could she die?
Could she, could she, could she die?
Has anybody seen my gal?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Choices

Choices

Even the right man
Must wait for the right time
Because mother is right
That “career first” is the right path.

But when you're on the left path
Your heart keeps looking for the right man
You left behind
For all the right reasons


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017






“It was while she was in high school that Malvina first met William “Bud” Reynolds, at a socialist dance. He was a merchant seaman, seven years older, handsome, and even more shy than she. He was self-educated, having left school after the eighth grade. They read poetry to each other in Golden Gate Park, but when he proposed, she refused. Encouraged by her mother, she had her sights set on college and a career.

She married someone else, and so did Bud. He ran for governor of Michigan on the Socialist ticket, with the slogan, “You provide the evictions, we’ll provide the riots!” They found each other again after she was divorced, and this time she said yes.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/