Inspiration
Student choice- teacher control is my mantra.
Revision is a vital step in the writing process. So, today, I’ll practice what I teach. You are cordially invited to choose a poem you’ve drafted this week to revise and polish.
But, first, note this general definition of poetry: “Poetry is literature designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense of experience, especially by the use of condensed language chosen for its sound and suggestive power, as well as for its meaning and by the use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadences, rhyme or metaphor.” (Houghton-Mifflin College Dictionary, 1986)
Process
Which of definition’s literary traits can you add to your drafts this week to make them more meaningful and appealing to you and your prospective readers?
- Monday was the ACROSTIC POEM in honor of a special person.
- Tuesday was the PANTOUM POEM of eight repeated lines
- Wednesday was TRANSLITERATION, converting prose text into a poem
- Thursday was LAZY SONNET, writing 14 line poem
- Friday was WRITING TO RAP RHYTHM laid over theme song from Zefirelli film ROMEO AND JULIET by William Shakespeare
- Saturday writing INSPIRED BY MUSIC by Mendelsohn to A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare
Choose a poem to polish and share here and with family, friends, and/or students.
Anna J. Small Roseboro, a National Board Certified Teacher is a published author and poet but is primarily an educator with over forty years’ experience teaching English and Speech to students in middle school, high school and college in public, private, and parochial schools in five states. A mentor for early career educators, Ms. Roseboro earned a B.A. in Speech Communications from Wayne State University and an M.A. in Curriculum Design from the University of California, San Diego. Her newest published work is a series of books published by Rowman and Littlefield designed for pre-service teachers and for those teaching middle school for the first time. See those three books GETTING STARTED (2018) MORE ABOUT WRITING (2019) EXPERIENCE POEMS AND PICTURES (2019) and NOT INTIMIDATING (2019) on her website http://teachingenglishlanguagearts.com/.
I wasn’t going to do this rewrite, but I decided to post my rap on my blog (I’ve been posting poems there all month, and being asked not to link in this space but to post my poems directly here was almost a deal breaker for me.) As I prepared the blog post, I started tweaking the rap, so here’s the minimalist rewrite.
King Lear Love Rap
A daughter’s love is never moving
Even with dad’s disapproving
When she says her heart be grooving
On her man & smacking his swooning.
Though her sisters vowed love’s oath
Cordelia’s love old Lear still clothed
So jealous Goneril & Regan both
Avenged their sister whom they loathed.
Meanwhile Fool chilled with his homey
Got up in Lear’s grill on mountain stormy
Faithful friend in Lear’s tsunami
Foolish old man would not be lonely.
And young Cordelia, she no fool
Her name be written on the scroll
Then Lear in death she did console
And jealousy released Lear’s soul.
Now let this tale sink right in
And let it speak among our kin
Those green with envy cannot win
The hateful drown in their chagrin.
So know the bard has got your back
That old white dude ain’t no hack
Read his words when dudes talk smack
He’ll give you beats most white folk lack.
Note: I tried to work on specificity with some word choices and images that maybe make it clearer.. This was the transliteration poem and Is still feel like it needs tightening… kinda wordy… but I can’t quite figure out what to do with it. Maybe more incubation time. Susie
Necking at the Drive-in
My sweetie, back in ’68, drove a baby blue Falcon,
entirely too small for our leggy bodies, his gigantic feet;
we filled up that tiny car.
July Friday nights pumped with pheromones;
we didn’t care what the movie was –
the point of the drive-in was glorious groping,
all that kissing, all that explo-ra-tion.
Navigating the topography of drive-in humps,
the rows like a field of levees
against the river currents of teenage hormones,
we parked.
Sweetie reached out the window,
dislodged the speaker from the post and mounted
it on the window ledge,
turning up the volume as the character voices
blended in unison across the field of cars.
Sun sinking behind the white screen,
Carradine and his Astro Zombies, faded
into the dark as we got down to the business of necking.
All about French kissing,
immortal minutes, we came up for air
only to dive back in for another liplock.
Distracted from the screen, we suddenly jolted,
found ourselves bolting upright,
yanked to attention, as bumper on bumper,
Falcon to Impala convertible, we’d rolled
into the car behind us,
his size 13 feet tangled with the emergency brake.
Three indignant girls,
in their ponytails and cat-eye glasses,
planted themselves in front of the Falcon,
hands on hips, castigating,
“Jimmy O’Riley, what have you been doing?”
at a volume that replaced our now castrated speaker.
Scrambling to assess no dent,
cringing to recognize his old Catholic elementary classmates,
Jimmy clambered back behind the wheel,
turned the key, hit the accelerator,
mute speaker still anchored in the window, wire flyin’,
and ripped up and kha-thumped over every hump
to exit our foiled
night of drive-in necking.
[I kept the speaker mounted on my bedroom wall for the next four years. 🙂 ]
by Susie Morice
I loved it all, but I understand the urge to tweak. Whatever you eventually do to this story, please don’t EVER get rid of “explo-ra-tion”, “castrated speaker”, or “kha-thumped over every hump”. Reading those aloud was a joy!
I chose to re-work the poem, I wrote earlier this month, using more precise word “doctors” instead of “physicians”and adding one more stanza with a capital letter on Home the second time, to acknowledge the release and hope one can have at a time like this.
Waiting for Her to Die
Should we be happy or sad?
Should we be sorry or glad?
No more treatments.
No more meds
All those doctors have lost their creds.
No more stuff,
She’s had enough.
“Let me go!
You all must know
I’ve had a good life.
I’ve been a good wife
And a loyal mother.
“I’ve been a good sister to each dear brother
A little demanding, yes that is true,
But, I’ve always been there for each of you.
“Unhook the tubes.
Detach each wire.
Bath me now
And put on a fresh gown.
Comb my hair and lay me back down.
It’s time for me to retire.
“I’m going home
No more to roam
From doctor to doctor
Looking for a cure.
I’m going Home
Where a cure is sure.”
Should we be happy or sad?
Should we be sorry or glad?
Oh, how touching! So many of us have known relatives who are beyond ready to go and this surely must be their sentiment as they put one foot on the other shore. “I’m going home where a cure is sure” is my favorite part. It brings the vision of a person who is deathly sick closing her eyes here and opening them beyond with a healed and perfect body. My mama did that. Thank you for sharing this today!
What Kim said. Most of us have “been there”, hoping to have this kind of courage when the time comes for us.
Anna- This poem has so much heart and reminds me of all the brave cancer warriors out there. I also like the lines “I’m going Home Where a cure is sure” because it reminds me of the things hoped for but unseen. Beautiful!
A few minor changes made to this one, and it’s still not quite right. I would like to get mom’s input before it is fully finished; I wish I could go back and get dad’s as well. His perspective seems absent from this poem.
Day One
Met on New Year’s.
The 11 year age difference
did not deter.
Fell in love over
Shared ideals and big dreams;
Married seven months later,
By choice
On a sultry July day.
That day
Father placed a penny
In the bride’s shoe–
For luck.
One sister played the piano
In an impossibly short dress.
The other stood
By her side.
Stifling heat,
Small town church,
No air conditioning.
The dress–powder blue,
A reflection of the times.
The vows–timeless.
A simple ceremony
Forged a bond eternal,
A backyard reception,
Shaded and perfect.
Their union sealed by
friends and family.
Thirty-four years together
Began that way.
As you may know, I am hosting a parallel poem celebration with my junior high. On day twelve, we had the inspiration “Things They Carry,” I wrote about not carrying a purse, but a student called me out, so while not revising a poem necessarily, I am revising your perception of me, being more transparent because while I do not carry a “purse” as Sarah, I do as Dr. Donovan:
I carry a diaper bag.
Yes, that’s right —
not because I have children who need diapers,
but because I am a teacher who travels.
Six classrooms a week.
First floor.
Second floor.
Next door.
Across the hall.
25.5 miles west.
22.2 miles south.
In the diaper bag I carry
highlighters and sticky notes,
pencils and pens,
markers and clickers,
books and papers —
oh, and sometimes an apple.
I carry my classroom in my diaper bag
so that I do not have to dig into teachers’ desks,
beg my students for a pencil or pen,
fail in that most important teachable moment
when I need
something
from
my
diaper
bag —
the classroom I carry.
Teachers and our bags! I was wondering how you traveled so lightly when I read your first poem, so thanks for sharing this one – I now have a more accurate image and think it’s swell that you carry your classroom!
So succinct and complete! Your first line hooks the reader and then every line from then on carries us to the next. Now THAT’S how it’s done!
Sarah — Boy oh boy, is this ever a teacher’s life. You have genuinely nailed not only the stuff that you carry, but the tone is so clearly that strong teacher voice. It is a hard job, and we carry the whole damned thing with us everywhere because that’s what we have to do to be the teachers we are. And I love that it’s a diaper bag… that has that element of teacher grit that is so real. I really like this poem a lot. You ought to submit this puppy to one of the education publications — ASCD or one of the newsletters like Ed Week or NEA! It’s got great teacher sass in the stance. Susie
What a perfect prompt for Easter! Thanks for the chance to do over.
INCIDENTAL MUSIC, ACCIDENTAL POETRY
It was a dark and stormy… afternoon,
The sky was boiling, the wind blew fiercely,
The rain pocked churchy suits and frocks,
We scurried through the parking lot.
The venue? A spacious wedding hall
With lovely patio and garden wall
For those all-important photographs
Which ceased at the first thunder clap.
KRACK! The lights were next to go,
Then air conditioning and kitchen power.
“Don’t worry, darlin’”, said the preacher,
“This is Texas, we’ll just wait an hour.”
The bride and maids fled to the Ladies
While aunties rounded up some candles,
Which later set the groom’s tux afire,
But that’s a whole ‘nother story entire.
We finally squeezed into the chapel,
Vows were said and oaths were muttered.
No a/c, ninety-five degrees,
Couldn’t hear a word. Didn’t matter.
Next day we learned the Tornado Watch
Expired at cold beef:warm beer,
The fate of that stormy marriage, as well?
Over in less than a year.
Jackie — Anna is so wise. She anticipated this revision day — planned for it in preparing her inspirations. I think this is an important lesson for teachers, too — to plan for time to revise, republish. In reading, it felt like story time around the fire with such energy and movement — and whimsy (though it must have been scary) — and the last line was indeed a twist that fit nicely with the twister, Tornado Watch.
This revision is perfect! It clarifies the ending and preserves the bumps of that wedding day! I agree – what a wonderful day for revisions!
I’m glad to have a revision day! I had an insightful suggestion from a fellow poet on my Good Friday poem. I’ve added the last line she suggested and changed a word or two. Here it is – Hapoy Easter, everyone! I’m enjoying our writing so much – I wish they were in a group book.
Good Friday’s Last Word
You think your haters and gangstas are oh, so bad
But they weren’t nothin like one Man had
Two of His homies betrayed and denied
One kissed Him to show who’d be crucified
He pleaded with Daddy to take this cup
His Daddy said “Trust me, Son, I know whassup.”
One bro sold Him out for some silver coins
They scourged Him, nailed Him up, and
pierced His loins
They mocked Him with a crown of thorns and
other things
They told Him He wasn’t the King of Kings
His haters said if He was King He’d jump down
Instead He forgave them with love to astound
He said, “It is finished” and died on a cross
But Daddy wasn’t finished showing who was Boss
Fast forward three days and His rock was moved
The King of Kings done busted out,
KINGDOM PROVED!
His Daddy said, “Son, I didn’t take that cup
‘cause now to Heaven I can bring alla y’all up.”
Next time you think haters get the best of you
Just look at what one Man, our Savior, went through.
Just think of all our Savior JC can do!
-Kim Johnson
Kim — love that you incorporated that last line “think of all our Savior JC can do!” Perfect for today!
Kim–I second the group book! I am in awe of the talent shared within these posts and the risks taken. The repetition in your last two lines is an effective way to close. These lines resonated with me today: He said, “It is finished” and died on a cross But Daddy wasn’t finished”. Happy Easter!
We can make the book happen! Hmm, my wheels are turning.
Kim, this brought tears to my eyes as I read this contemporary telling of an ancient story. I’m sure part of it’s emotional impact is the day itself, but I thank you anyway for reminding us that Easter, for some, is Resurrection Sunday and that it was a costly day and we didn’t have to pay. Big Bro paid our way. I also like the personal relationship your poem suggests with casual terms like” Daddy” and “JC”.