the OTHER mother

How to Be a Poem

Last week Marcia and I led a poetry activity with Pearl's preschool class in celebration of National Poetry Month. 

We were a little hesitant about this venture because neither of us has experience in teaching this age group. Also the fact that the kids range in age from 3-7 years old made us a little anxious.

Our trepidations turned out to be unwarranted, however. The children had great fun coming up with their own line for the collaborative writing project we chose for them. 

We divided the class into two groups to do the writing (dictating, really) on long rolls of paper. Then each group presented what they had written to the other. We'd defined a poem as a gift made out of words, so this fit into the plan nicely. They laughed and cheered for every line.

When we were done, we combined the two banners filled with words, and the class poem was born:

Olivia is a butterfly flying to a leaf to lay her eggs.
Charlotte is a unicorn flying and playing with her friend.
Liliana is a horse eating hay on the farm.
Alex is an ant biting a kid.
Gillian is a dragonfly flying in the sky close to the roses.
Angela is a blue butterfly laying eggs on a rubber tree.
Zachary is a lion eating a zebra in the forest.
Lucia is a baby zebra playing with her mom and then sleeping.
Pearl is a cheetah running to a cave with hyenas.
Brandon is an elephant eating hay in Africa.
Charlie is a T-Rex laying eggs in the grass.
Jean Luc is a shark eating a fish in a secret hiding place.
Ana Sofia is a horse with a baby eating hay on the farm.
Thomas is a cat sleeping in a house.
Ryan is a silk worm hanging like a spider.
Jacob is a big horsey at the farm eating apples with raisins.
Sydney is a koala eating apples and bananas in a eucalyptus tree.
Ethan is a cheetah thundering after an antelope in the wild.
Anna is a happy baby unicorn stuck in a tree.
Jan is a monarch butterfly laying eggs on a man’s head!

After we finished, I rushed off to work.  Marcia decided to hang around because Pearl didn't want to miss recess, her "favorite subject."  Marcia said that as the kids played, they remained their animals, galloping and racing about.  As the excitement grew, some of the kids began declaring to the children in the other class: I am a poem, I am a poem, I am a poem!

Poem for Mommy

Over on the WITS blog, the poem of the day is a love poem from a child to her mom.

A Poem with Pearl's Name in It

               

                        

Avenue A

We hardly ever see the moon any more
                                                          so no wonder
   it's so beautiful when we look up suddenly
and there it is gliding broken-faced over the bridges
brilliantly coursing, soft, and a cool wind fans
       your hair over your forehead and your memories
              of Red Grooms' locomotive landscape
I want some bourbon/you want some oranges/I love the leather
                jacket Norman gave me
                                                and the corduroy coat David
     gave you, it is more mysterious than spring, the El Greco
heavens breaking open and then reassembling like lions
                                                 in a vast tragic veldt
     that is far from our small selves and our temporally united
passions in the cathedral of Januaries

     everything is too comprehensible
these are my delicate and caressing poems
I suppose there will be more of those others to come, as in the past
                                                  so many!
but for now the moon is revealing itself like a pearl
                                                  to my equally naked heart

by Frank O'hara

Poem by a Poet Named Carrie

               

                        

ON LEAVING: AN ESSAY

by Carrie Olivia Adams

Notes toward its beginning

        I. What will remain
              A. dust of the luna moth
              B. carpet bunnies
                    1. that clung to a pant leg, a cardigan sleeve
              C. brown hair
                    1. on the window sill
              D. a furniture footprint
              E. the smell of quiet

II. To move
              A. the inverted tongue
                    1. laid out between dictionary pages
              B. the question asked by one hand         of an other

      

III. Things unlikely to fit through the door
              A. yesterday's
                    1. light split by blinds
                    2. pink glow of new skin
              B. the voice
                    1. of an offer
                          a.of the something else

      

IV. To pack
              A. rose
                    1. flattened
              B. the inside of a pearl
              C. twine

V. Forgotten Things       

__

The Body       

Surreal does not mean too real. It is the real that we cannot hold, cannot see. Without plucking our eyes.   

Brown paper lines the thoughts of pearl. And I wrap glass with the black and white etchings of faces and names, smudged to the tips of my fingers, streaking themselves along the cheek.   

And, I would rip my heart out for them, those faces and names. Give it in pieces. And hope that I could grow a new one by the time I needed it again. To give away.

If there can be a footnote to absence, it is the beating heart. You must trust me this time.       

I never said it, did I? I never told you. Or did you  just pretend not to know for my sake? Or for yours? I will tell you that if you think it is true, it is.    

I think the boxes must be real. Though they bend when I watch them too much. In them, I have swathed and placed you, in moments.  I am tying them, twine unravels to the door. You would place petals in my mouth as it opens.   

__

Works Cited       

Silent Dictionary, Parchment That Knows the Tongue

Luna Moth, A Short Short       

Thread Sound, What Is Beneath

Known Notknown, The Look When He's Not Looking       

Index Finger, Chasing the Jaw-Line

Sundays, When the Week Is Spent       

Woman Who Re-reads Your Letters, Memoir of a Scab Picker

Boxed Parrot, Green Under Closed Lids       

Tulips That Would Be on the Table, The Inside Before Unfurling      

__       

Omissions Revisions    

Not flame
Not smoke
A red scarf only.   

I should have said he instead of you.

If dust,
then envelopes.       

The rope became twine became string became the aftermath of absence only.

Hands ask what eyes can't. They lead the leaving.       

Then boxes,
if keeping for myself.

      

Not giving away.
Not asking to be given.

      

I might have said there is so much I should tell you, but that would have been a line. I can’t pry the shoulds from the understood.

I will re-imagine this.       

Which means it is impossible not to take the paint chips, the carpet threads, with me.

Which means you will keep finding brown hair.

by Carrie Olivia Adams

published in DIAGRAM 2.6

A Poem a Day starts April 1st

Are you ready for National Poetry Month?  Get your poem a day from WITS. They're piping hot.

The Valentine Album

I've collected a few photos from Valentine's Day and the week.  As I mentioned, Valentine's Day is also Marcia's birthday.  This one, her 40th, is a milestone occasion so we had some wonderful visitors join us to celebrate.  Our friend Amy swooped in from Denver for a day.  Marcia's parents also made a quick visit.  On a sadder note, it's Alex's last weekend here; his family flies to England on Tuesday.  We will miss all of them. 

Poetics

Earth is crammed with heavens.

   --Robert Browning

(painting by Knol Aust)

Poetry Friday

Check out the Poem of the Day.  It's by Hakeem, age 8.

A Poem a Day

Throughout April you can read a new poem by a kid on the WITS blog.  You can comment on all your favorites.

A Poem a Day

Song

The lions are roaring
with temper.

The traffic is running
in terror. 

The dolphins are leaping
in happiness.

The people are rushing
to the shop in the market.

I am resting, trying to
get some sleep.

The fire is burning
with fear.

The cars are driving
with speed.

The mother is resting
to sleep.

A girl who wants
to sing,

The world about
to spin,

The wind blushing
in trees,

With my mother,
With me.

Anh, 3^rd Grade

Celebrate National Poetry Month with A Poem a Day, a project sponsored
by Writers in the Schools (WITS).  Each day of April we select a poem by
one of our students and share it with friends.  If you want to receive the
poem in your inbox, sign up here.  Or if you'd like to read the poems on
the WITS blog, simply bookmark the website. 

This poem "Song" by Anh, age 9, is a sneak preview.  If you like this one,
there are more wonders to come.  Feel free to post this on your blog. 
And a very happy poetry month to you.

A Suddeness of Trees

I've mentioned before Pearl's love of trains.  We saw a train on the way to her school and another on the way home.  She was excited.  We both love Liz Rosenberg's picture book, Adelaide and the Night Train.  Here's a train poem I will post for my girl.

Night Journey

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.

by Theodore Roethke

Psalm by George Oppen

In the small beauty of the forest
The wild deer bedding down --
That they are there!

		Their eyes
Effortless, the soft lips
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth
Tear at the grass

		The roots of it
Dangle from their mouths
Scattering earth in the strange woods.
They who are there.

		Their paths
Nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them
Hang in the distances
Of sun

		The small nouns
Crying faith
In this in which the wild deer
Startle, and stare out.

A Poem a Day

As you may or may not know, I work for an education organization called Writers in the Schools (WITS).   Each year WITS celebrates National Poetry Month (April) with A Poem A Day, an outreach project that promotes poetry and the written word. WITS selects a poem by our student writers to represent each day of the month and shares that poem through emails and by displaying the poems in local Houston businesses.

To sign up, email WITS at mail@writersintheschools.org. WITS will email you a new poem each weekday in April. For local businesses, we will deliver 30 poems by children, an acrylic stand, and instructions on displaying the poems. 

Here's a sneak preview from the April collection:

She Left Me: A Cowboy Poem

She left me for another man
She took her stuff
And just left
I sat there and cried
She and I had so much time together.
She left me
I bought her shoes and food
And I bought her a house
There's only one thing to do
Buy me another horse.

I had so much fun with my new horse
That I forgot about the
other horse

A week passedAnd guess who I saw?
That's right...She was back.
Clean broke
Skinny and shoeless
And I was happy to see it.
I said "Hey."
"Hey," I said.
"Ney."
"Ney."
She cried.
I told her,
"That's what you get for leaving me."
I was a good man and I told her,
"Scram."

Carlester, 6^th grade

A Poem a Day

If you want to receive a poem a day via email during April, National Poetry Month, send an email to Writers in the Schools (WITS) at this address: mail@writersintheschools.org.  These are not just any old poems; they're poems written by bonafide children.  Here's a free sample:

Red Cheeks

My mom's cheeks get red when she falls in love.

She fell in love with my dad when she first saw him.

This is how it happened:

First my dad saw another man bothering her.

So my dad went right over there and said, "Stop bothering her!"

My mom said thank you and her cheeks got red.

My dad's did too.  He told my mom,

I will pick you up tomorrow between 5 p.m. and 6:30.

Paola, age 9

It's Like This

I don't mention my job all that often on this blog, but I work for a nonprofit education organization called Writers in the Schools (WITS).  We're a group of literary writers who teach reading and writing to kids. 

Today is our annual holiday party.  I have been cooking up a storm!  Our tradition is that the staff cooks for the writers (teachers).  I only used a mix for one of my dishes.

One of the best parts of my job is getting to hear the children read their stories and poems.  Over the years I have collected many favorites.  Here's one of them:

It's Like This

when I’m having fun time goes by like a rocket but when I’m in the dumps it just takes forever and ever and ever. I just don’t understand WHY it can’t be the OTHER WAY AROUND! and besides that, when my birthday is coming time crawls like a snail and when it finally is my BIRTHDAY it’s over just like that! GROWN UPS THINK IT’S FUNNY! Jacqueline, 2nd Grade