Poetry Friday -- Spark!

In the podcast Poetry Unbound, Pádraig Ó Tuama always begins with something like "One of the things I love most about poetry is..." and that thing he loves leads to the encapsulation of the poem he's featuring. With that small bit in mind, we listen to the poem, then he zooms in and deconstructs the meanings and the craft moves in the poem. After he takes you deep inside a poem, you get to hear him read it one more time, and it's almost like hearing a new poem.

Let's try it.

One of the things I love most about poetry is the way it sometimes works like postcards or snapshots from another time. With just a few words, the poet moves us through time and space with their words and images.

SIX WEEKS ONE SUMMER

1985
After the first job,
before the second degree.
Between.

Blue Highways
South -- tobacco fields
West -- Navajo Nation
North -- regal mountains

Soundtrack
box of cassette tapes
meadowlark on a fencepost
AM radio

Souvenirs
single finger wave
small town hospitality
sense of direction

The longer I've written poetry and read poetry, I realize how often poems are about journeys of one kind or another. One thing that stands out for me about this poem is the stanza titles, which seem almost like notes scrawled on the backs of photos that have been tucked in an album. They also give each stanza a particular job within the poem, first letting the reader know the setting in time and place, then giving sensory details, and ending with a list.

In each of the stanzas, the details are concrete and vivid. Each of the places in the second stanza are iconic to the region, yet one can imagine that experienced from the "Blue Highways" of the stanza's title, they were more than simply stereotypical. The cassette tapes are a reminder that this is 1985, and the meadowlark and AM radio give a sense of the isolation of the journey. In the last stanza, the alliteration serves to stitch the three images together.

The title of the poem, "Six Weeks One Summer," gives one version of the time frame for the poem, while the first stanza pans out to the big picture of the speaker's life trajectory. The second stanza gives a sense of the scope of the journey in the poem. The final stanza brings the reader and the speaker back full circle with the list of souvenirs from the trip. The last line returns the reader's attention to the beginning, where the speaker is in a place "between," and lets the reader know that after six weeks of circling the country, the speaker has gained perspective and a sense of direction.

SIX WEEKS ONE SUMMER

1985
After the first job,
before the second degree.
Between.

Blue Highways
South -- tobacco fields
West -- Navajo Nation
North -- regal mountains

Soundtrack
box of cassette tapes
meadowlark on a fencepost
AM radio

Souvenirs
single finger wave
small town hospitality
sense of direction

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

Thank you for "listening" to my Pádraig Ó Tuama-style "podcast" about my poem. Here is the inspiration piece via Amy Souza's Spark project that I was provided for my writing:

"Finding Your Way" by Victoria Nessen

Buffy has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at her blog Buffy Silverman, and there's ONE spot left on the roundup schedule for the next 6 months.

Happy Poetry! Happy Friday!

Poetry Friday: "A Portable Paradise"

 

On Wednesday, I received the best gift of all -- the right poem at the right time.

I'm still grieving the loss of The Slowdown podcast, and haven't brought myself to listen to the final episode. Maybe today.

Luckily, I have a backlog of Poetry Unbound episodes, and luckily, I picked the one from Monday. Pádraig Ó Tuama reads and comments on Roger Robinson's poem "A Portable Paradise."

"And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
hum its anthem under your breath."

(read the rest here)

What a lovely thought -- keeping my Paradise close at hand to give me comfort in times of stress. Yes.

 

But without Pádraig Ó Tuama's commentary, I would have missed the shift of the pronouns in the sixth line. Before that, the pronouns are "I." In line six comes "they." After line six, the pronouns are "you" and "your."

Ó Tuama suggests that this shift allows us to read "ethically," moving from a self-centered reading to a consideration of all the times when we've been the ones to steal another's paradise. 

Oof. I had to sit with that idea for the rest of the drive to school. Yet another example of all the ways we need to do our own internal work before we'll be ready to fully engage in the big work that the world is giving us right now.

Big work, indeed. As I've been saying to myself and my students all week, no matter what the outcome of the election, we need to stay focused on the three metaphors I chose for me/us: the big umbrella that welcomes all into its shelter, the lightbulb of truth and learning, and the bridge that spans divides. Our focus is on positive activism -- using our voices and our actions to lead the world in a positive direction.

Happy Poetry Friday! Thanks to the technological marvel of breakout rooms in Google Meet and the great good gift of Amy LV's online poetry archives, today we will attempt Poetry Friday they way I did it when we were in the classroom together and I could send students to my poetry shelves for a book: pick a poem, practice reading it aloud, perform it for the whole class. 

Susan has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Soul Blossom Living.

Poetry Friday: Thanks

THANKS by W.S. Merwin
This poem starts out easy, but it gets complicated real quick. Kind of like life. In her commentary, Tracy K. Smith says of the poem,"It insists upon a fierce form of moral reckoning."

Nonetheless, I'm giving thanks for YOU, as well as for every bit of this complicated messy achingly beautiful world. Listen to the podcast and read the whole poem here.

Thanks, also, for Michelle Kogan's POWER filled Poetry Friday Roundup. The last roundup of the year. I almost missed this one...what day is it today? Lookie there! It's Friday!!

The January - June 2020 roundup list is in our sidebar for the grabbing (or message me and I'll send you the code) and on the Kidlitosphere website.

Listening to Podcasts

If you don't listen to podcasts yet, it's time to get started. Since you already love children's books, you should start with The Yarn, by Colby Sharp and Travis Jonker.

The Yarn "unravels" a book through an interview with the author or illustrator. Each episode is between 8 and 28 minutes long -- perfect for listening on a short commute or as a break in your work.

Franki wrote about The Yarn when it was brand new, just over a year ago. Colby and Travis have really come into their own over the course of a year, and they have some incredible episodes that will be worth going back to.

Take the episodes #26 and #27, for example, in which Travis and Colby talk to Kate DiCamillo at ALA. She talks about why she writes for children. I love her words so much, I'm going to use them to describe why I teach.

I teach because of the "necessity of hope." You can't show up every day and work with 10 year-olds if you don't possess more than the normal amount of hope. Teachers traffic in hope. It keeps us going; it keeps our students going; it keeps our schools afloat when the rest of the world would sink us without a second thought. And then there's the "peripheral magic." Like Kate's stories, we don't utilize literal magic, but you can't deny that there's some kind of magic going on when you see a child's eyes light up with understanding. 

In Kate's books, and in classrooms around the country, "Things are still possible." 

That's why you write, Kate? That's why I teach.

 

The Yarn

If you have not had a chance to check out Colby Sharp's and Travis Jonker's new podcast series, The Yarn, you must check it out!!!

I am not a good listener so I have never paid a whole lot of attention to podcasts.  I have tried a few but never got that interested in anything. I liked to SEE things while I listened. I have several friends who have recommended podcast series but I just didn't get it. They all seemed a little long and boring to me.

But then last week, Colby Sharp and Travis Jonker released their first season of their new podcast series THE YARN.  If you go to their Twitter page (@theyarnpodcast), this is described as: "A narrative of adventures. Travis and Colby go behind the scenes of children's literature in this narrative style audio show." The podcasts are produced by BkPk.Media, a site that shares narrative style podcasts centered around education.

I have to admit, I only listened to the podcast because Colby is my friend.  I knew it would be good, but remember,  I didn't like podcasts. And I had to learn how to subscribe to and play podcasts on my phone. It was big work.  But SOOO worth it.  I was expecting to like it because Colby and Travis are incredible,  but I wasn't expecting to LOVE LOVE LOVE it! The podcasts are GENIUS. I had no idea what was possible in a podcast until I listened to the first episode. Not only are they packed with fascinating information--the story behind the book told in such a distinct and brilliant way--but these podcasts are entertaining and powerful all at once.

The first season of The Yarn focuses on the new graphic novel, Sunny Side Up by Jennifer Holm and Matt Holm. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of this at the Scholastic Reading Summit and it is an incredible read. The podcasts add more to the story, give the reader more to think about and are just really fun to listen to.  It's like you are hanging out with Travis and Colby and all the cool people they talk to.

I had to listen to the first podcast twice because I was blown away by the way that it was crafted. I kept thinking it was a genre or something that was totally new to me--a type of story I have never experienced and one that I am totally hooked on now.  After I listened to it twice, I made my husband listen to it. He loved it. Then we went to dinner with friends (Tony Keefer, Julie Keefer and Katie DiCesare) and we spent the first 15 minutes of dinner talking about how amazing the podcast was! 

Not only did I enjoy the podcasts as a listener, but as a literacy teacher, the whole digital creation piece was fascinating to me. I couldn't help but think about what an amazing mentor this would be for young writers.  And I can imagine the power of sharing these episodes after reading Sunny Side Up. 

So, you've heard enough from me! Now, if you haven't already started listening, you'll want to do that right away! You can access/subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher and Travis's Blog.

Travis is also blogging about each episode at 100 Scope Notes. Each post adds a bit of extra info too. You can access them below.

Episode 1
Episode 2: Raina Telgemeier
Episode 3: David Leviathan
Episode 4: Phil Falco (Plus How the Yarn Logo Was Made)
Episode 5: David Saylor (Plus Behind-the-Scenes Sketches of Sunny Side Up)
Episode 6: Lark Pien
Episode 7:  Matthew Holm (Plus Thumbnails from Sunny Side Up)
Episode 8: Jennifer Holm (Plus Our Secret Sponsor Revealed)

And if you get totally obsessed with these podcasts like I did, you can read a bit about the launch of the series and learn about the episodes in this season at School Library Journal's blog.  You can also get lots more information about the series by listening to the podcast on Let's Get Busy where Colby and Travis talk about the origins of The Yarn (another amazing site filled with brilliant podcasts by Matthew Winner at The Busy Librarian blog that you'll also want to check out.)

And I just found out that we, as listeners,  have the chance to support more seasons of The Yarn by donating at their Kickstarter site. Check out what Colby has to say about the podcasts and the Kickstarter and think about giving a bit for them to continue this great venture! 

Choice Literacy Podcast with Kevin Hodgson

I had the opportunity to talk with Kevin Hodgson about technology in the Writing Workshop recently. The podcast is up at Choice Literacy this week. I have learned so much from him over the years and was thrilled to chat with him about his current thinking. Enjoy!

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1822.cfm