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

24th Line of the 2018 Progressive Poem

Welcome to the 24th line of the 2018 Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem! Thank you, Irene Latham, for this (now beloved) yearly tradition!

In Heidi's "pre-progressive poem pre-poetry month poetry friday round-up" post she assigned us the task of jotting some thoughts after the first line went live and then hiding them from ourselves until it was time for our line.

Here's what I wrote:

Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.

Nature
spring
hope
gardening
POV the plant/seed?
internal rhyme/assonance

How very...thoughtful and...detailed of me! (NOT.)

Here's what I know now. We've got a seed named Jasmine (Jas for short) who has awakened on a moonlit night. She's playful, inviting Moon to a game with her and Owl. Jasmine first twines herself around Owl's toes, then around a trellis provided thoughtfully by Sky. In line 13, Jasmine and Owl headed for Lee Bennett Hopkins' birthday party. As Jasmine twines, she is writing a poem (or singing a song?). As for poetic moves, we have

• internal rhyme/assonance (nestled/bed) & (nestled/stretched) in the first line 
• internal rhyme/assonance in line 3 (blooming/moonlight) 
• fun compound words: stardrops, moonbeams, and starsong
• a concrete line that actually twines
• alliteration ("wiggled a wink")
• scientific truth (there really is twining poet's jasmine -- "Queen of Garden Vines, Poet’s jasmine (J. officinale) has long captured gardeners’ hearts with its vigorous habit and heavenly fragrance")
• a bit of dialogue, and 
• several poets have chosen to leave their lines open at the end.

As I write on 4/22, awaiting Amy's line on 4/23, I wonder if she'll move the poem ahead by adding to/explaining more about the game, the birthday party, or Jasmine's poem. Or will she surprise me?!?! (She surprised me.)

Cue several hours of brainstorming and doodling, hair-pulling and thesaurus-consulting.

And now, without further ado, here is the poem, with my version of stanzas and my line added. (Kiesha, feel free to add punctuation to the end of my line if you need it to make yours work):

Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.
Oh, what wonderful dreams she had!

Blooming in midnight moonlight, dancing with
the pulse of a thousand stars, sweet Jasmine
invented a game.
"Moon?" she called across warm honeyed air.
"I'm sad you're alone; come join Owl and me.
We're feasting on stardrops, we'll share them with you."

"Come find me," Moon called, hiding behind a cloud.

Secure in gentle talons' embrace, Jasmine rose
and set. She split, twining up Owl's toes, pale
moonbeams sliding in between, Whoosh, Jasmine goes.
Owl flew Jasmine between clouds and moon to Lee's party!
Moon, that wily bright balloon, was NOT alone.

                                               Jas grinned,

                                                        stretched,

                                                               reached,

                                                                 wrapped

                                                             a new,

                                   around          tender

                                             rootlet

a trellis Sky held out to her, made of braided wind and song.
Her green melody line twisted and clung. 

Because she was twining poet's jasmine, she
wiggled a wink back at Moon, and began her poem.
Her whispered words floated on a puff of wind,
filled with light and starsong. "Revelers, lean in –
let's add to this merriment a game that grows
wordgifts for Lee. He's a man who knows
selection, collection, and wisely advising

These blogs are where the poem's been, and where it's going:

1 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass
2 Jane at Raincity Librarian
3 Laura at Writing the World for Kids
4 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty
5 Jan at bookseedstudio
6 Irene at Live Your Poem
7 Linda at TeacherDance
8 Janet F. at Live Your Poem
9 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
10 Matt at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme
11 Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales
12 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink
13 Linda at A Word Edgewise
14 Heidi at my juicy little universe
15 Donna at Mainely Write
16 Sarah at Sarah Grace Tuttle
17 Ruth at There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town
18 Christie at Wondering and Wandering
19 Michelle at Michelle Kogan
20 Linda at Write Time
21 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
22 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
23 Amy at The Poem Farm
24 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
25 Kiesha at Whispers from the Ridge
26 Renee at No Water River
27 Buffy at Buffy's Blog
28 Kat at Kat's Whiskers
29 April at Teaching Authors
30 Doraine at Dori Reads

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