Today marks Day 9 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond! As we approach March 13, the last day we were with our students, the day we hurriedly sent them packing without any true sense of what we were shifting into or out of,Continue reading “Slice of Life 2021 Day 9: Signs of Spring, Redux”
Tag Archives: poetry
Slice of Life 2021 Day 6: What You Think About
I’m writing each day in March as part of the Slice of Life Challenge. Enjoy! What you think aboutwhen you’re a teacherisn’t the grade bookthe test scoreor paper work What you think aboutwhen you’re a teacherisn’t the holy cow! unitsthe whiz-bang lessonsor even the crashers and burners What you think aboutwhen you’re a teacherisn’t theContinue reading “Slice of Life 2021 Day 6: What You Think About”
Slice of Life Challenge 2021 Day 2: She’s Listing!
Today marks the second day of March, the second day of the Slice of Life blogging challenge. I’ve committed to write each and every day during the month of March and – who knows? – maybe even longer. Join me! Sometimeswhen we see a trusty old galsmooth sailingwe think wowhow does she do it little do theyContinue reading “Slice of Life Challenge 2021 Day 2: She’s Listing!”
Slice of Life: Pre-Emptive Gratitude
We don’t have a snow day today, and I’m about as happy as a wet cat. Something deep within me ached for a day back at home, even if it still involved a full day of classes and meetings. The thought of getting up early, bundling up, clearing off the car, of navigating barely passableContinue reading “Slice of Life: Pre-Emptive Gratitude”
Sunday Sitdown #2: And So It Begins
Where does my racial story begin? At my own birth?At the first moments I can remember?The very first time I noticed people were different? Or with Parents andGrandparents,With the many ways they interacted withWithoutAboveOthers who were different?(All while they tried hardSo very hardTo become the not-different themselves) How can I evenStartTo explain my own upbringingContinue reading “Sunday Sitdown #2: And So It Begins”
A Teacher’s Guide to Inauguration in 36 Easy Steps
or, Reflections from the Evening of January 19, 2021: How to Manage to Stay Afloat for the Next Eighteen Hours and Hold up the Walls of the World While it Watches, Waits, Breathless Pull yourself away from noise. Pet your dog. If you don’t have a dog, pretend to have a dog. Drink something warm.Continue reading “A Teacher’s Guide to Inauguration in 36 Easy Steps”
Why I’m in the Living Room
watching the British Bake Showand not in the family roomwatching TVat the end of a long dayright by my husbandis because after enough timestanding on my feetrubbing my eyestaking a breathshaking my head as Istare at the world about me I have decidedthat I am donewatchingfictional shows about the real world
Slice of Life Tuesday: Missing Dreams
Today for the weekly Slice of Life challenge I knew I had a poem to write, but wanted to experiment with language and form. I came to a modified version of a triversen, a William Carlos Williams-created form consisting of six tercets: 18 lines in 6 stanzas. I’m still tweaking and working and thinking, butContinue reading “Slice of Life Tuesday: Missing Dreams”
A Thing of Wonder
Today I saw an owl. It glided over and lit in my next-door neighbor’s tree just as I was returning from a walk at dusk. There it sat, easily a foot tall and several inches across. It was a thing of wonder. It sat long enough for me to walk through the front door ofContinue reading “A Thing of Wonder”
Upon Re-Entry
I’ve been here. I’ve returned to school after a devastating loss before, and I did it again today. Days like these are strange, tiring and full of uncertainty. Will I be able to hold myself together? Can I make it through? Do I have it in me to accept the “we missed you’s,” the knowingContinue reading “Upon Re-Entry”
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 