I was reminded last week of how much I love the band Barenaked Ladies. Enjoy.
Category: Uncategorized
Allergies, Lack of Sleep, School Stress, and Technical Difficulties of the Computer Variety…
…have caught up with me today. Sorry! Two poems tomorrow.
Poem-A-Day: John Donne (once more)
Since conquering death is sort of the theme of the weekend, and so is holiness, here is another wonderful poem by John Donne, though not, this time, one charged with erotic imagery or the darkness of a disappointed love affair.
***
Holy Sonnet X: Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
***
Happy Easter.
Whom I’ve Been Reading: Katharine McGee
It might be tempting for someone over the age of maybe thirty to read the dust jacket of Katharine McGee’s The Thousandth Floor and dismiss it as a story about entitled rich kids and their #firstworldproblemz.
Don’t do that. This book is really well written.
If You’re Going To Be In Houston This Saturday…
Here’s more information about this Saturday’s exciting festival!
I’ll be at the Gulf Coast Indie Book Fest, a Houston tradition, showcasing Finis., The Milk of Female Kindness — An Anthology of Honest Motherhood, and my new poetry art cards (which are gorgeous and frameable, by the way).
I’m also going to be sharing a table with YA sci-fi writer Adam Holt. Come see us!
Click this link to find out about the full day’s various activities. There’s something for the whole family, and for a diversity of tastes.
National Poetry Month — Day 1
If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that during National Poetry Month I like to do some sort of month-long celebration of verse. Sometimes it has taken the form of a poem contest. The last couple of years, I’ve curated a Poem-a-Day series, which has been hugely fun. This year I want to do a little of this, a little of that, to reflect the enormous variety of things to appreciate about poetry. I will never be able to present everything in a month, but that’s okay.
Today will be the first of probably a fair few Book Spine Poems, because I love them. If you’ve not heard of this phenomenon before, BSPs are found poems made by putting the titles on the spines of books together. Every year at my school, the librarian and I sponsor a Book Spine Poetry Contest for the high school students, and frequently one of our teachers, IT wizard Harlan Howe, “primes the pump” on the first day with a BSP of his own. They’re usually really, really good and so entertaining, and this year’s is no exception.
I’d love to know what you’re doing for National Poetry Month, if anything. If you’d like to share your own poems with me and possibly have them show up here on my blog (I still have a few spots for this month left open), please email me at forest.of.diamonds@gmail.com with your poem and the subject line “Poem-a-Day series” so it doesn’t get lost in my inbox or spam filter.
Happy Poetry Month!
Waffle Wednesday and AP Gothic Lit.
This morning before classes started I had a lot of tech to fuss with because of a guest speaker Skyping in (which was great), and my kids and I were late getting out of the house this morning (which wasn’t great but wasn’t too bad either), and there was just a lot of stuff to do and people to talk to and things to deal with, and so the long and short of things was that by five minutes before class started, I still hadn’t gotten any breakfast.
That’s not good, especially since I wasn’t going to get a break until lunch.
My students told me, “Go get some breakfast!” It was Waffle Wednesday in the cafeteria, my favorite. My very favorite. The only breakfast I love.
I’d like to get some breakfast.
“We can start class ourselves. Go get some food!”
I thought about it. Okay, sure, you probably can. Here’s what I want you to do. Yesterday each of you wrote about one of five analysis questions. Find the others who had your question and talk about what you came up with. When I get back, each group will present their analyses to the class. Sound good?
“Yes, go eat! Get a waffle! Don’t skip the whipped cream!”
Oh, don’t worry, I never skip the whipped cream on anything.
I went. Got a waffle. With whipped cream. When I came back ten minutes later, they were all doing just as they were supposed to. I sat down and ate my waffle while they regaled me with some really good ideas about the stuff we’re reading and the moral questions it poses and how those themes relate to other elements of our culture.
Sometimes, my students are the best.
