teaching

Coming soon! Kick the Poetry Can'ts

Much to the joy of poets and poetry lovers everywhere, national poetry month begins April 1st. For the last few years I’ve been writing a poem a day for National Poetry month. One year it was haiku about my native garden. The next it was poems about the father I never knew.  And last year it was about some of the things I learned about myself during a month of play. I love the pressure of coming up with a new poem every day, much like the pressure of the recent March Poetry madness, though this time I’m not in competition with anyone.  When I was pondering a topic for this year I was thinking about how I am often asked how I go about teaching poetry to incarcerated teens. I decided to spend the 30 days in April sharing the various ways I teach poetry, with exercises that I will do and post and invite readers to play along.

So you’ll still get a poem a day from me. But you’ll also get the chance to write a poem a day yourself and get support along the way. Teachers and parents who homeschool their children will learn some fun ways to include poetry into your classroom.

I hope you’ll all join in the fun. See you back here on Sunday where you KICK THE POETRY CAN’TS.

 

Thursday, March 29, 2012|Categories: National Poetry Month 2012|Tags: , , |2 Comments

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #8

Today was the eighth of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

It was a good day. I expected it would be. It happens in all the residencies I teach in detention facilities – a really bad day gets a few kids in trouble and then the next time I come in they do pretty well. I have four sessions left and the last three, I just found out, will be with a substitute in the class. That makes things really tough. Substitutes usually bring out the worst in them.

One girl got out yesterday so we had a new girl today. Pretty low key though she participated right off the bat. That doesn’t usually happen. It’s so hard to look at these kids and not know their stories, what brought them to such a place.

The word for the day was TRUST. Here’s their group poem:

TRUST
Trust Feels like an unbreakable bond, like someone catching you when you fall.
Trust looks like two lovers holding hands and it sounds like best friends gossiping on the phone.
It smells like incense in church.
Trust tastes like leftovers your mom made and tears.

They wrote individual poems about trust and a few of them shared their writing. We did another group poem, a sort of mad lib.

This is the poem
that goes in the place where you have to stay on your toes
that flows because it runs through our veins
because we said so
and when thugs cry at night
happy, alone, solid,
this is the poem
that runs from the ground up to our soul.

Another warm-up we did was envelope poems. I have a stack of envelopes, some have cards in them, some have paper folded up. Some just have a postcard. The envelopes are sealed and they are all different. Different colors, shapes, sizes. Some have stamps. Some don’t. Some look like they’ve been folded in someone’s pocket for a long time and some have words written on the outside. The idea was for them to have written a poem that is inside the envelope. Some of them did pretty well with this. Those that didn’t, well, I think I need to do a better set-up to invite them to write.

I handed out copies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How Do I Love Thee? I tried to get a discussion going about what they thought meant but that fell flat. I ended up just reading them the analysis. Then we brainstormed various ways you could let someone know you loved them without actually saying the words, “I love you.” They were slow to get started but eventually filled the board. From there I had them write their love poems that never used the words love. Again, only a few girls shared.

I handed out a copy of the poem You Learn (which I have attributed to Jorge Luis Borges) and this poem they felt more able and willing to discuss. They liked it a lot, especially the last line, “with every goodbye you learn.” Then they wrote their own versions of what they had learned and they wrote some marvelous poems. Really good stuff.

I read them the last pages of Hugging the Rock which then lead to a discussion about how come writers don’t make very much money. As I gathered up the folders one I asked one girl if she was doing okay because she didn’t share anything today and she usually does. She said, “I’m okay. But I don’t know what wrong me lately. All of the sudden my poems getting personal and stuck under my skin.”

I told her good. That means you’re a writer now.

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #7

Today was the seventh of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

We had a substitute teacher, the same one we had a week ago and that the girls have quite often. They should have been fine but they were rowdy, talkative, up and down all the time. When I came in two girls had already had incident reports filed on them. One more had been yanked out to talk to a counselor and mental health pulled a different girl out every ten minutes for check-ins which makes all the girls uncomfortable.

I persevered but I knew right away it wasn’t going to be one of their better days.

Several of the girls had pulled prompt cards on Monday so they could write on their own time. I didn’t know if anyone would share but three of them did. Long poems. I was pleased and they immediately asked if they could have new prompts for today. (At the end of class 4 girls took 2 prompts each.)

The word of the day was SATISFACTION.
 
Here’s their group poem.
 
Satisfaction
Satisfaction smells like victory.
It tastes like your favorite food, something you just cooked, sweat dripping off your cheeks after you win a softball game.
Satisfaction feels like a ton of weight  lifted off your shoulders, a medal hanging around your neck.
It looks like somebody climbing the highest mountain in the world
Satisfaction sounds like windchimes, applause, someone chanting your name over and over again.

 
We did individual poems on satisfaction but too many of them veered off into inappropriate topics. We tried “I seemed to be, but really I am” poems and we had rounds of “I don’t get”, “this is dumb” and “I’m done,” even though the page was blank.
 
We tried some “I am” poems.
 
We tried to talk about Langston Hughes and “a dream deferred”.
 
We brainstormed nouns, adjectives, emotions, and verbs on the board, picked a few out of each column and wrote poems on that.
 
I handed out prompt cards of unfinished sentences and had them finish the sentence and write a list poem.
 
Some girls wrote. Some girls popped up and down and asked to sharpen their pencil before every poem.
 
When I stopped to ask one girl if she needed help she asked me if I thought they were doing good today. I asked her what she thought. She said she didn’t think they were having a very good day. She was right.
 
When I told them there were no treats to hand out today no one argued with me. They knew.
 
It wasn’t the best day but it wasn’t the worst. As the substitute they had today said, all we can do is come in with a pure and open heart. The rest is up to them.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2011|Tags: , , , , |11 Comments

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #6

Today was the sixth of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

I confess, it was hard to gear up the energy to go back there today. Two bad sessions in a row knocked the gumption right out of me. It’s not that my other sessions have always gone perfectly. There’s always a time you hit the wall but you can still see over it to where you know you’re heading. But that last week left me feeling like I was floundering, unable to give them that undefinable something that is a gift from a teacher to a student, a power that I know comes with being able to voice your feelings.

I prepped hard all day Sunday. I had tons of writing prompts and ideas and lyrics to some of their favorite songs and a bag full of full-sized candy bars.

And oh how they surprised me. It’s not that they suddenly became devoted fans of poetry. It’s that they took chances and engaged with the process of writing. On Friday several of them had asked for one of my prompt cards so they could write some extra poems on their own time. They shared those before we got started today. Then it was time to do a group warm-up on the board. I loved how they all begged for a chance to pick the word for the day. The word they chose was NORMAL and here’s what they came up with.

NORMAL
Normal tastes like oatmeal and water and sometimes like Kool Aid.
It feels dull, boring, like tears or a paper cut ’cause life hurts sometimes.
Normal smells fruity like Mango-Tango and flowers and the air around you. It’s like when you walk into your grandmother’s house and it smells like food.
Normal sounds like your family talking, your favorite song on the radio, my mom.
Normal looks like a boy and a girl in love, a girl and a girl in love, a boy and a boy in love, a drag queen. Normal looks like the girls in here.

From there they went on to write their own poems on the topic of normal. One wrote about how normal for her means getting up early to take care of children that aren’t hers and making sure her mom has something to eat when she comes down from her high. Another wrote about how normal was being molested by her father. I was so proud of the writing they did even though I had to shove my hands in my pockets to keep from handing out hugs.

We talked about various poetic devices in general and then more specifically as it related to the song lyrics they asked me to bring in. And then they wrote their own poems modeled on the songs. They all participated and before I left, most of them had asked for new prompt cards so they could do even more writing on their own time.

What was different this time from the last two times? I don’t know. I was just thrilled for them to have such a good session.

One more thing was different from last week. This time, when I handed out chocolate, they said thank you.

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #5

Today was the fifth of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

It’s killing me. Not just the work, which is emotionally draining, but it is killing my spirit. My confidence is melting.

We had a new student today and she loves to talk and loves to be the center of attention. Major extrovert. Good for her but hard to teach around, especially with little backup from the teacher. Because she was new, the rest of the girls in the class were more interested in hearing her stories than doing their work. I brought in chocolate as a treat for the end of the day and their comment to that, Whatever. I don’t care.

 
We did the word courage as a group poem. It took twice as long than usual. I read to them from Ruth Gendler’s book, The Book of Qualities. It should have been a nice lead from the emotions we did with the group poem but when I asked them to write one of their own they all said, “I don’t get it. Can we do something else?”
 
We watched Sarah Kay perform her wonderful poem HANDS and managed about a two minute discussion on hands before they wrote their own. Only one person wanted to share.
 
I gave up and moved to art, asking them to trace their hands and decorate them, telling them it would be some of the art we would use to decorate the poetry collection we were building. I brought in lovely zentangle hands and encouraged them to try some tangles. Nope. Not a one.
 
The entire day the new student was up and walking around, going over to read the other student’s work, constantly in motion, constantly talking (but she did do the work.) No matter what I said, she couldn’t keep still for long. The teacher finally said something.
 
Something happened with one girl. She was called out of the room and when she came back she just slumped in her chair and cried. I couldn’t ask why but I offered her paper and encouraged her to write about it. I told her she could tear it up when she was done. She just nodded, clutched the pencil tightly in her fingers, and continued to cry.
 
I don’t know what else to do to try and reach them. They won’t talk, won’t interact so the time just stretches on and on.
 
This is hitting every single one of my insecurities. 7 more sessions to go. I have no idea what I will use to fill the time.

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #4

Today was the fourth of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

It was not a good day.

I confess, I like walking into a classroom of boys and being greeted with mostly positive energy. When I walk into the girl’s class, I am mostly ignored. I know they are in lock up and have no choice about attending the class. I know they have a lot of issues. But some days, well, as any teacher knows some days are harder than others.

They picked a word for their group poem, worked on it for a while but without much energy. They used it more as an excuse to chatter about other things and call out put-downs to each other. Halfway through they begged for another word and said they would do better. Softie that I am, I agreed to switch. We changed from TRUTH to LIES but the group poem fizzled out when every other comment from a girl was a negative about someone’s love life. There was no group poem today.
 
We moved on to haiku which they had requested to do. I handed out a sheet of paper with a dozen haiku on it. I asked them to read them then pick one they liked and tell me what they liked about it. I had barely turned around when they started with, “I don’t get it. I don’t know what to do.” Which quickly spiraled downward to, “This is dumb.”
 
But they did it. This much credit I’ll give them. All but one girl contributed thoughts about the haiku they read.
 
Then we talked about the “season” words in haiku and I asked them to find the season words in the samples they had. They did okay with that. But that wasn’t writing.
 
When I ask them to write their own haiku (after more discussion and brainstorming) it was just more chatter. I knew I didn’t have control of the class but I didn’t know what to do to get it back again. (That’s if I ever had it in the first place.) This is one of those times that I really wish I was a formally trained teacher with more experience and training to handle situations like this. When the few that wrote shared their work it was a giant step backwards from what they had done before. GIANT step.
 
I don’t think it was the haiku. I think they just decided that today was the day they weren’t going to write, weren’t going to work, weren’t going to cooperate. The girl who had written the poem that made her (and me) cry on Friday had lost her privileges for the week so she opted out of everything saying it didn’t matter what she did because she was already screwed. She kept mouthing out to everyone around her.
 
Midway we stopped to talk about what they did or didn’t like about poetry. Most of them said they liked poetry fine as long as they could write it on their own time and not in a forced poetry class. I understand them not wanting to write and being half-assed about it all but still, they are in lock up and they have to follow the rules, get credits toward graduation, etc.
 
No matter what I asked them the answer was no or I don’t care.
 
The two hours felt like 8 and I was completely drained when I was done.
 
I think this was one of the testing sessions that tends to happen each time I teach in lock-up situations. I need to come up with some really good and fun poetry lessons to share on Friday. I’m thinking of YouTube videos of poets performing their work. I also need to come in full of confidence to show them they haven’t beaten me.
 
I think what is the hardest about days like this is that I know in my heart how poetry and writing can help them think about their lives differently, how it can help them begin to heal. I know how writing things down can make things better, even if it is just for a sliver of that particular moment. I know how writing has saved me until I was strong enough to save myself.
 
But I can’t tell them that. I can only try to light a path.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2011|Tags: , , , , , |19 Comments

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #3

Today was the third of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

We had a full class but a substitute teacher. He seemed to really get into the spirit of poetry which I think made the session more fun for the girls. There were two girls absent on Friday. I had left them each a note with copies of the poems I had shared and the two poetry assignments for the day. I really didn’t expect them to do the work but both turned in not one but two long poems. I was quite pleased.

Before we got started the girl who’s poem caused such a reaction on Friday handed me a copy of her poem. She hadn’t put it in her folder on Friday saying that she wanted to recopy it. I didn’t expect to see it again. I thought that after she had written it and allowed it to be shared that she wanted to keep it to herself so I was surprised and pleased when she gave me the copy. But I was floored when a couple of the girls asked me read it again. I did and once more, just like on Friday, they clapped and cheered for the author. It was a great start to the day and, I think, a huge boost to the author.

The word they picked for today was beauty. Here’s their group poem.

BEAUTY
Beauty sounds like little birds chirping in the morning and an angel playing a harp. It sounds like a waterfall, like the ocean waves hitting the rocks at the crack of dawn.
It tastes like a sweet strawberry dipped in chocolate, honey on your morning toast, an orange, chocolate turtles, a caramel apple. Beauty can also be bitter as a lemon.
Beauty feels like a baby’s bottom, gentle as rose petals, soft as silk.
It smells clean,like a fabric softener sheet, like a red rose, like Cherry Blossom perfume at Victoria’s Secret, like fresh cut lawn after the rain.
Beauty is graceful like a princess dancing at the ball. It looks like the setting sun, stars twinkling near the moon, a swan floating on a sparkling lake, city light.
Beauty looks like me.

After the group poem they each did a short writing on the topic of beauty. Unlike the boys, there’s no grumbling about not wanting to write (even though they know that’s why I’m there.) There’s one girl who wears a perpetual scowl and rarely writes more than two lines, no matter what the topic. She never feels good and is always in a bad mood. I can sense a world of hurting going on behind her eyes. I just keep opening poetry doors and hope that one of them will click for her.

There are two girls who have slightly unusual names and I continue to struggle with the pronunciation. It is frustrating to both of us when I mess one of them up.

Next we talked about how people judge them, brainstorming various ways of being judged on the board. Then they wrote about how they felt the world saw them. It might have been too soon for this prompt. I don’t know. Two of the seven didn’t write anything. The others all wrote about how they didn’t care what other people thought about them. By the third poem being read I got the feeling they were spouting back something they thought I wanted to hear, something they had talked about it sessions with their counselor. There were original thoughts in the poems but a lot of stuff that I think came from the therapy process this system uses. I’ll have to rethink how I introduce this to perhaps get a better response. One girl chose to write about her uncle instead of herself and did a great job. I think the two girls who chose not to write had a lot to say but weren’t quite brave enough yet to put it down on paper.

After that we talked about who they really were, who they would see when they looked in the mirror, who they wanted the world to see. The response was about the same. This was one of those exercises that didn’t go over as well as I had hoped.

I’m finding that lessons that fell flat with the boys work well with the girls and vice versa. We talked about list poems and did an example of one on the board then talked about how we could expand the list and enrich the poem. They also did a group Acrostic on the word POEM.

Power within
Overcoming struggles only I understand
Emotions come out
Memories last forever

I finished with reading some more from Hugging the Rock. They are all hoping the mother comes back and I think we’ll have the potential for some interesting discussion by the time we get to the end of the book. Even though I had told them that I had written the book and talked about some of my experiences while writing the book, for some reason today it clicked with them, that it was my name on the cover. They appeared to be a wee bit impressed. (The substitute teachers was a lot impressed.)

Before I left, four girls asked if they could pick a prompt card to write an extra poem before Wednesday. Write more poetry on your own time? Of course I said yes.

Monday, July 11, 2011|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2011|Tags: , , , , |2 Comments

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #2

Today was the second of twelve sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls. We were missing two girls today so we were a small group of just seven.

When I got there they were just finishing PE and complaining about working out. Two of the girls chose to not get credit rather than do the actual work and I was afraid I would be dealing with the same thing in the class. There was no happy, Hey Miss Susan! or What are we going to do today?

WhenI work with the boys, even from the first day, they are talking to me, asking questions. The boys are usually much less interested in poetry than they are in talking to me. The girls, while all of them may not be interested in poetry, they’d rather do that right now than connect to me. I understand. I’m new. One more person with power over them (they think) or the power to hurt them. It all takes time.

After doing these types of workshops for a while I’ve learned it usually takes 3-4 visits before I feel I’ve made a real connection. And I’m not naive enough to think I connect with each kid. There are always some I don’t reach. I know I can’t save the world. Not even this little corner of it. I can only plant seeds in what I hope is fertile ground.

We did another group poem to start the day. I let someone pick one of my word cards. (Someone always loves to pick a card, any card.) And the word they picked was joy. Here’s the group poem they did.

JOY
Joy smells like chocolate, apple pie, cookies, and pizza. It smells like baby lotion and fresh air after the rain.
Joy feels like butterflies in your stomach, that feeling you get on the roller coaster just before your stomach jumps. It makes you feel like smiling and your heart is racing. You feel like crying and giving hugs.
Joy tastes like Starbursts, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, fresh-baked cookies for Santa. It tastes Thanksgiving dinner with all your loved ones.
Joy sounds like jingle-bells, oldies in a car downtown and applause from the audience after you just won your Grammy award. When you are climbing a mountain and you finally get to the top and you scream, that’s joy.
Yellow is the color of joy.
Joy looks like Santa and the Easter bunny. It looks monkeys jumping on the bed, no, it looks like someone dancing. Yeah, someone dancing for joy.

All but one of the girls offered up ideas for the poem which was pretty good. I shared a few poems that I liked and tried to get some discussion going but other than a couple of comments, the discussion fell flat. Part of that is they just don’t feel comfortable with me yet and part of that (probably most of it) is that I’m not asking the right questions.

I’ll have to brainstorm more questions for the next set of poems I share. I think my insecurities really ramp up when I ask a question and there is silence. The four other adults in the room heard me but don’t speak up. (In other classes the teacher, probation officer or aides have all spoken up. Not here.) We moved on to what I was thinking of as another warm-up, the I remember poems. I had them brainstorm some things they remembered (recent past and more distant past) with no stipulations on happy or sad memories. I read them a few examples and then let them write.

After ten minutes, everyone was done except for one girl. She was one of the ones not interested in poetry. A bit of a smart aleck. Last visit she was willing to miss getting her fine art credits if it meant she had to write poetry and share what she had written.

I went over to check on her. She said she was writing about a friend she made in elementary school. She paused and then said, “He died last year.”

I asked her if writing it out was helping and she said yes.

We went around the room and everyone else shared their I remember poems. They were good. Better than I think they thought they could be. A few of them surprised the teacher. (I love it when that happens.) I looked over at the girl in the back of the room and asked her if she was done yet. She said no but promised she would finish it if I would just let her write. I nodded. At least she was writing. And she wasn’t mouthing off to stir things up. She bent back over her paper.

I shared Maya Angelou’s poem Life Doesn’t Frighten Me. We talked about fears a little bit and I read some examples of variations of Life Doesn’t Frighten Me that some other students had written. Then I turned them loose to write their own versions. When I checked in on the girl in the back of the room she was hunched even closer to her paper, her nose almost touching her desk. I leaned close and asked her if she was done and she shook her head no. The rest of the class shared their new poems to much snapping and clapping. (Snapping is what they use instead of applause here and in many of the units but try as I might, I can’t seem to get in the habit of snapping instead of clapping.) I finished up by reading a few more pages of Hugging the Rock. I got a few responses to my questions but again, not much. I was getting ready to thank them for their participation in the day when a hand popped up in the back of the room.

“Done! I’m done.” The teacher was surprised but complimented the girl on finishing the assignment when she had a habit of blowing things off. I asked her if she wanted to read it. She shook her head. I asked if she wanted me to read it for her and she said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Please.”

That girl, that sullen, I don’t want to do anything and I’d rather have an F girl, she wrote THREE PAGES. Both sides. As I read, she curled up into a ball on her chair, pulling her shirt up to cover her face, all but her eyes which stared at the desk. I read about how she remembered her friend that she met when she was in the fourth grade. I read about how she remembered him sticking up for her when things were tough, and how she remembered all the fun they had together. I read about how she remembered when he was changing into a difficult teen and how she consoled him when he broke up with his girlfriend. I read about how she remembered her own life turning upside down, about how her father kicked her in the stomach and how CPS took her away. I read about how she remembered lashing out, running away, spiraling downward. I read about how she remembered this friend, this special best friend, shaking her, telling her to get her crap together because she was better than this.I read about how she remembered being sent from home to home to home until she landed where she is today.

And then I read. . . I read about how she remembered getting a phone call from her cousin last year and how she remembered finding out that this friend, this special best friend that she always knew she could count on, was dead.

When I finished reading there was silence in the room. The author of this powerful piece was still hunched over her desk, tears streaming down her cheeks. Iput my hand on her shoulder and she was shaking. I wanted to pull this young woman into my arms and hold her and let her cry as much as she wanted but of course, I couldn’t do that. I thanked her for the beautiful writing, thanked her for sharing her precious memory with us.

The room exploded in applause.

This is why I write poetry. This is why I teach poetry.

When we let it, poetry heals.

2011 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop #1

Yesterday was the first day of 12 sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated teenage girls.

This is my first time with an all girl group, usually I work with the boys. There were subtle differences, less posturing and more giggling. There were more things in common, one tough kid in the back of the room who carried the chip on her shoulder like a flag. One who was determined to not get involved but then couldn’t help herself. Several that sent out “do not get too close to me” vibes one minute and the begged for attention the next. And one, that one that is always in every class, that just loves poetry, jumps right into everything and has a couple of poems already written that I just have to read (her words) before I go home.

This is also a new facility for me. Not too far of a drive but boy was it hot! When I left the temp outside was 99 degrees. There’s no AC in room, just a fan and the door and windows open which mean we were swatting flies away the entire time. I was impressed that they were able to write with it being so hot.

This is my first time trying out a two hour session. Two hours is a long time when the girls don’t talk a lot but things usually open up after a few sessions. What two hours means is more poetry prompts which yields more poems for them. But I have to break it up so they aren’t writing for two hours straight. This is the part about teaching that is always the hardest for me, trying to figure out how much and exactly what to say to them before giving out a prompt. One friend told me she found that her sessions went better with less talking and more writing. I can see that but I also feel an obligation to teach more. That could also be a pressure I put on myself. I’ll be checking in with myself after each session and see how that evolves.

I started off with telling them a little about me and my writing but it was easy to see that didn’t interest them so we went right to work on a group exercise. I have cards with various emotions on them and let one student pick a card. She picked WORRY so we brainstormed the five senses and how worry would look, taste, sound, smell and feel. This is the group poem they came up with when they were done.

Worry tastes sour like lemons, salty like sweat and tears.
It smells like a wet dog, a dirty diaper, gym socks left in the locker.
Worry feels like sandpaper, snakeskin and it makes your heart ache like you’ve just been stabbed.
Worry sounds like shattering glass, a dripping faucet and all those crazy thoughts debating in my head.
Worry is unrecognizable, like a shadow in an abandoned house.

After that they went on to write more about worry on their own.

Then I read them a few poems without much reaction or interest in participating in the discussion. Hope to do better with that tomorrow.

When I had absolutely no idea what to do next, I pulled out my magazine poetry. I gave each girl a stack of words and phrases cut from magazines and they arranged them into poems. Then they glued them onto paper so they could keep them. I need to find more simple, easy to do in a short amount of time art projects to keep on hand for fillers when needed.

I finished the session with reading them the beginning of Hugging the Rock. I figure I’ll read a bit each session and we should be able to finish the book by the last day.

Not a bad start. The heat complicates everything. (Never done a summer session before.) Now I’m scrambling to put together ideas for tomorrow.

Thursday, July 7, 2011|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2011|Tags: , , , , |12 Comments

Writing life update

I haven’t written a lot about what I’m doing writing-wise lately. I’ve immersed myself in art because it is soothing my soul which has been troubled by not writing. I have finished some fun art projects like my quote art journal and the art journal for my 15 words or less poems. But writing. I’ve jumped around a lot lately, which is my normal process. For now my focus is a book of essays about the 14 dogs I’ve had in my life. I have no contract, not even a publisher in mind. I’ve been told by a couple of agents and a couple of publishers that it is going to be a hard to impossible sell. I’ve been told writing books that aren’t teaching an aspect of craft don’t sell unless you’re famous. I’ve been told collections of essays by not-yet-famous people don’t sell.

I’ve been told a lot of things that should discourage me from spending time on this project.

But here’s the thing. Working on this book makes me happy. Seems like a good enough reason to work on it for me.

Monday, June 20, 2011|Categories: Writing Life|Tags: , |5 Comments

Give and Take

Today gives me the chance to share one of my favorite poetry lessons that I use when I teach – LIST POEMS!

It started when I was teaching poetry to teens in detention facilities. I learned early on that it was good for me to have a few extra poetry lessons in my pocket for days when things didn’t go quite the way I wanted them to. So I cut some phrases out of magazines, taped them to some index cards, and handed them out as poetry prompts for list poems. The kids soon learned that we would warm-up every session with a quick list poem. Sometimes we did them individually and sometimes we did them as a group on the board. It was a great warm-up for the class and once the students got to know how to do them, I could just pass out a card and they could go to work. This came in handy for kids coming in late or one of those days when I needed something to fill the last 10 minutes of the class.

The only trouble with the index cards was that the kids like to bend them and tear them so I made some larger cards that I decorated and then laminated and they are much more durable. (And for all you people who like to recycle, instead of index cards, I used those magazine subscription cards that fall out of magazines. I painted one side and glued construction paper on the other side. Then I glued the magazine phrase on the construction paper, drew some doodles, and laminated them.You can see more pictures here.)

I’ll start sharing some of my cards here which I hope you will use as a prompt to create a list poem in the comments.

And hey, if you are not a poet or don’t want to play with poetry, you could consider this a simple creative writing prompt. Give yourself 10 minutes and see where it takes you.

List poems are so much fun to write and even the most reluctant poet can usually manage to get some words down on the page. I usually tell the students to start by brainstorming a list of everything thing they can around the given topic. From there they try to expand with more poetic language, metaphors, and try to evoke a feeling from the reader.

List poems itemize things or events. They can be short or long, rhymed or not.

Falling Down the Page by Georgia Heard is a great book of list poems. Some online examples can be found here. A longer one is Fear by Dorianne Laux.

Ready to play? Here’s today’s List Poem Poetry Push.

z2

Have fun. Start with a list that comes to mind when you read the prompt and see where it takes you. I’m looking forward to reading your responses.

Here’s mine:

You took
my self-esteem
my laughter
my pride in how I dress
my ability to trust
and to see the good in most people

You took
my dog, my cat
my good credit rating and almost,
my car

You took
my trust
my friends
my music

You gave back
a broken heart
a shattered dream
and finally, freedom.

Susan Taylor Brown, all rights reserved
Edited at 2011-02-01 09:59 pm (local)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011|Categories: Poetry Prompts, Susan's Original Poems|Tags: , , , |41 Comments

Friday Five

I've been dealing with some health stuff this week so it has been an unproductive week which makes the Friday Five a bit more difficult. But I'm going to give it a shot.

1. I am hit and miss with my 2 poems a day. More hit than miss so that's good.

2. I hit Zero In-Box with my emails. This was huge because while all the house stuff was going on and my hard drive was dying I wasn't using my Outlook mail. I just left everything in Gmail which really got to be a pain because I'm addicted to sorting my mail into folders. When I was finally able to download all my old mails and then added them to what had been in Outlook before, well I had 12,000 of them to process. I still have about 100 in my "follow-up" folder but hitting zero felt great!

3. I have confirmed in my head that my office needs to be painted green. It might be a year before I get to it and I have no idea which green because the green I used in the rest of the house reads brown in my office, but just picking the color family felt pretty darn good.

4. Our family lost a childhood friend this week, a young man, only a few years older than my son. He lived across the street from us, the oldest of three sisters and he played big brother to my son through-out his childhood. I remember him best with a skateboard under his arm. My son wrote a moving post about it here.

5.I added a new habit to nightly routine – reading a poem a night and recording what I read. I chose index cards to record the name of the poem, the book it was from, what I liked it about, any favorite parts and how it makes me feel. I haven't read enough poetry and I want to read and try to understand more of it. I keep thinking of some kind of blogging poetry community, something apart from Poetry Friday, where we could discuss poems we read because there is just so much I don't understand. I began with Billy Collins and the second poem of his I read was called Monday and spoke to the vision of the poet who is always looking out the window because there is always something there to see. I loved it until the last two stanzas but then it lost me and I wish I could talk about the poem with someone and understand what I have missed.

If you're looking for the Poetry Friday round-up, please visit A Teaching Life.

Friday, January 21, 2011|Categories: Random|Tags: , , |12 Comments

Planning My Writing Time

Usually by this time of the year I am going crazy with preparations for a teacher assignment at an at-risk detention facility. For whatever reason, I didn’t get an assignment this year. I’ll admit to feeling a little bit down for a day when I realized the time for assignments had gone but now I realize that it was likely the Universe telling me it was time to just knuckle down and finish some writing projects of my own. When I teach, I find it hard to write much of anything except my daily teaching reports. Teaching is exhausting. Teaching poetry to incarcerated young men is VERY exhausting.

So I’m listening to the Universe and trying to focus, instead, on SS which is a YA verse novel inspired by last year’s Poetry Month poems about my father. I’ve never been one of those people who thought much about how many words I got down each day. NaNoWrimo never worked worked for me. And except for deadlines that come when I am writing on assignment, I’ve never tried to get a certain project done by a certain day. Which probably explains why a lot of my novels are waiting to be finished.

But the last two years for National Poetry Month I committed to writing a poem a day, every day, on a certain topic. And I did it, without fail.

So I’m setting myself a new goal – I want to have a ROUGH draft of SS done by the end of March, before National Poetry Month begins. I’m rounding out the time left between then and now to 75 days. (actual number is 78) I’m not counting what I already have done but if I did 2 pages a day, that would give 150, 3 pages a day would be 225. Since this is in verse, I’m setting it at 2 poems a day. Some fit one one page, some will run longer. Now no one knows how long a book is going to be and I’m not going to worry about the specifics. I’m just going to try for 2 poems a day.

Now I don’t think that means the book will be done by the of March but I can’t revise until I have something to work with so that’s the goal. One rough draft of SS by March 31st.

Wish me luck.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011|Categories: Writing Process|Tags: , , |7 Comments

Poetry Friday – Poems by incarcerated teens


It’s Poetry Friday! And I’m trying to jump back on (and stay on) the Poetry bandwagon. I don’t know why it’s so tough for me except that I am in short supply of confidence in the poetry department so it always makes me hesitate and then, usually, the time has passed.

Tonight I realized I’d never posted more poems from my incarcerated teen poetry project. The past month their work has been on display at the deSaisset museum at Santa Clara university as part of the ArtsConnect program sponsored by Arts Council Silicon Valley. Below are the displays they made with their poems (kind of a 3D effect). The backgrounds are a combination of paint and collage. You can click on each photo (they are all different) to see the larger version which makes the rest of the poems legible but I’ve put a few here in the post as well.

It’s so very hard to get teenage boys to dig deep about the emotional stuff in their lives. Compound that by trying to get boys who are locked up, away from their family, their girlfriends, and in some cases, their children, and asking them to write about their feelings is rarely embraced. And yet that’s just what these boys did. Session after session they wrote their hearts out for me.

For those of you who don’t know about the project, there is a list of links at the bottom of the post to tell you a bit more.

Now, the student work.

From Arts Connect 2010

I’m the aspirin always getting taken from the medicine box
Trying to fix for a minute but it never lasts too long
I wanna be like a giraffe with my head about it all
I’m at the top of the ladder where I can never fall
I’m an eagle, a leader, I soar through the sky
I don’t play with the pigeons because their mind is not right
I’m caged like an animal but want to be set free
I’m a lion in the jungle I run my domain
Reality hits
I’m Daniel
an 18 year old looking forward to tomorrow

~~~ Daniel

From Arts Connect 2010

 

 


THE POWER OF

I’m a strong individual
Power so strong, the guy who couldn’t get visible
People get a visual
See, but they don’t,cause my life is invisible
Do what I want and times can get critical
Powers so strong, it feels like life is a miracle
but still
I’m invisible

~~~ Rudy

From Arts Connect 2010

I feel motivated to strive
And eat cuz I’m hungry,
I feel like a dodgeball
Being thrown around
I’m feeling sleepy
And language can’t explain
The unhappy thoughts in my  mind
I want forgiveness
And to wake up to a better day

~~~Sergio

From Arts Connect 2010

 


I’m like the devil in disguise
I sound like bombs going off in a city, like death to a man
I look nice but inside I’m crazy in the mind
I smell like gun powder, evil in its darkest form
I taste bitter and sour, like snakes venom and nothing more.
I’m nothing nice

~~~ Sergio

Kelly Polark has the Poetry Friday round-up today. Check out some of the other great posts.

*** For those of you who missed the series of posts about my 10 sessions teaching poetry to incarcerated young men, you can read them all here, in order:

More Lies I've Told

MORE LIES I TOLD

In 4th grade,
hungry for praise of any kind,
I volunteered to memorize
the preamble to the constitution
practicing over and over
until I could recite the whole thing
without once looking at the words
scribbled on my hand.

My teacher sent me to another class
to show off how her teaching skills
made me good at memorizing.

One deep breath, then
I recited each word, smooth and clear,
pausing to make sure I didn’t trip over
“domestic tranquility” or “posterity”

Finished, the class clapped
then the teacher asked my name,
smiling when I told her,
smiling the kind of smile you smile
when something makes you feel good inside.

Any relation to Tommy Webb?

My heart pounded
when the name we never spoke at home
was blurted out in a room full of people.
My father’s name.
The father I didn’t know.
The father I felt sure
held the very answer to who I was
or who I was supposed to be.

But I was good at more than memorizing.

Trained for years to pretend
there was no such person as Tommy Webb
and if there was,
he had no hold on me,
I shook my head and said,

No. No relation at all.

@copyright Susan Taylor Brown 2010
All Rights Reserved

National Poetry Month Celebrations & My Poetry Project

Tomorrow starts a month long celebration of poetry for National Poetry Month. There are going to be all sorts of wonderful poetic activities going on around the Kidlitosphere all month long. I’ll keep a master list here and if you find others or decide to start one yourself, leave a note in the comments and I’ll add you to the list.

Last year I was inspired by my new native plant garden and I wrote a haiku a day for 30 days all about California Native plants. This year I was struggling with how and where to focus my April poetry project. I thought about focusing on just one poetic form again but decided I wanted the chance to play around with different forms if the mood suited me. I know myself well enough to know that with poetry, constraints help me focus and stretch. That left me scrambling for a suitable topic. I poked around inside myself until I came up against something that hurt, a topic that was deep and emotional and would force me to peel back the layers of myself, which is where some of the best poetry comes from. A few months ago I posted about finding my father’s obituary before ever getting the chance to meet him. I’ve made contact with one cousin since then and the process of knowing, for sure, that he is dead and now talking a little bit with a new member of my family, well it’s stirred up all sorts of things.

So for National Poetry Month I’ve decided to explore my thoughts about my father. I’m not promising perfect poems but I am promising emotional honesty.

Here’s a look at what else is happening around the Kidlitosphere.

KIDLITOSPHERE CELEBRATION OF NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Wednesday, March 31, 2010|Categories: Family, National Poetry Month 2010|Tags: , |6 Comments

Friday Five – A Random Edition

Okay, I haven’t done a Friday 5 for a while so let’s give this a shot.

1. Today is the next to the last session with my group of incarcerated teen poets. I’m sorry I haven’t managed daily updates with the visits but I will do a few posts about them soon. Monday is the last day and there is so much to do (like typing in all their work so I have copies for the  exhibit)) before then. But today we paint. They collaged some canvases last week as backgrounds for the display and today we’ll do another layer with paint and textures. Fingers crossed that it’s another good art day. I have hot Cheetos in my backpack as a bribe reward.

2. I fell off the blogging wagon. I think part of it is the intensity of this teaching I am doing lately. It’s a lot of prep and a lot of recovery time for me. And part of it is adding new things to my life without letting go of any old things and come to find out, there really are only 24 hours in a day.

3. I haven’t even been reading blogs, just a quick scan of the feeds on Facebook which means I haven’t been commenting and I feel bad about that because so many people have been so supportive of my blog over the years. There are some exciting things going on with various people and I do cheer them on, I just don’t seem to be able to pause long enough to make an insightful comments.

4. I think about blogging a lot more than I have actually done it this month. I think, oh, I have ten minutes I could whip out a little blog post and then I think that everything I have to write about at that moment feels either too slight or too personal so I stare at the page for too long and finally decide that it is conceited of me to think that people want to read all that kind of stuff so I don’t post. What I think is happening is that I am having a shift of identity which is all good but it fits me differently and I need to figure out how it fits into the rest of my world. I did catch a great post by  that deals with this a little bit.

5. I’ve committed to writing an original poem a day (and blogging it) every day in April for National Poetry Month. Last year I posted a new haiku a day based on my native plant garden. I’m not sure what form or topic I will use this year but I do promise one new poem a day.

Happy Friday, all. I’m off to see my young poets.

Friday, March 19, 2010|Categories: Random|Tags: , |11 Comments

2010 At-Risk Teens Poetry Workshop – Class 2 / Session 2

Today was second session of trying to teach poetry to a group of at-risk teens. I use the word trying on purpose. If you read yesterday’s post about the first session you know that I was scheduled for one group and then moved to a second class. That class actually did some good work yesterday but today they put another bunch of students in, 7 new ones I think, and most of them were of the same attitude as those in the first day’s class.

In other words, it was not a good day.

I decided to repeat things from the first day, teaching them a basic drill of learning to describe something with the five senses and hoping to encourage them to think outside of the box. I’ve used this drill before as a warm-up and eventually the kids get the hang of it knowing that they are going to have to start the session with taking a word like PROUD or KIND or HOPE and then stretching their imagination to describe it.

We did a group poem on the board and then I asked them to try it on their own. I passed out a sheet of what I call power words, positive words that I hope they can learn how to use to describe themselves. Most couldn’t grasp the idea of picking a word. I was flexible. Pick any word I said. A good word. Not a negative one. For a few that was enough to at least try to get started. I walked around the room trying to help but for the most part they ignored me, turning their back on me to talk to someone else. But a few wrote. A few lines. That was all.

I took in candy to reward the good behavior but they turned their nose up at it.

There was one student who was stirring things up with everyone around him, poking at his neighbors and refusing to write. I tried to talk to him. I told him how the guys in jail had written some great things and how I was looking forward to reading the great things he would write too. And he told me being in jail was easier because they had no choice. He did no work at all, just tried to incite everyone around him to act up.

I didn’t say it out loud but I had to agree with him. There are consequences for their actions or inactions in jail. Here, there were none.

What took us more than half an hour to do today would have been done in less than 10 minutes in any of my other classes. I spent more time asking kids not to talk or not to hit each other than I did teaching. When the session was through I felt like it had all been a waste of my time. I asked the teacher for any tips on how to work with these kids and she said she had none. All she could offer was that she would be there to step in if needed.

On the way home I thought about the other classes I’ve taught and how there is always a spark, somewhere. That one child you can see waiting for you to open the door for them. I don’t feel it here. I don’t see hope here and that is the saddest thing I can possibly type.

We will give it one more try on Thursday. I’ve asked them to consider hand-picking kids for the class, kids that want to be there, kids who have earned the right to participate in something special. I’m told that’s what they have done in the past they just didn’t, for some reason, do it for me.

I’ve never turned away from a class like this but depending on how things go at the next session, I might just have to accept that this time isn’t the right time, for this group of kids.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2010|Tags: , , , , |16 Comments

2010 Incarcerated Teens Poetry Workshop – Class 1 / Session 1

Yesterday was the first of 10 sessions teaching poetry to a group of incarcerated boys. Since I have two classes this year they will be class 1 and class 2 (unique, I know.)

Just getting to class yesterday was an event as we are having huge rain storms here in northern California, accompanied by thunder and lighting and hail. I walked into the room and was greeted by cheers (they really like a break in their routine) and a couple of kids shouted out, “She has Sketchers!” Who would have thought that finally, after all these years, I’m wearing something (shoes) the cool kids want to wear.

This class is different from the group I had last year as they have a bit more freedom. You could the room was more relaxed (though we still have a guard in the room.)

I told them a little bit about myself and they were surprised to hear I was 51 years old. They guessed around 31. Good for my ego. We talked about what a rock was in the non-traditional sense. They got it right away and started rattling things off. Then I read them a few poems from my book, Hugging the Rock. This is a very smart group, articulate, and they jumped into conversation right away.

We did an acrostic poem about their name to help me get to know them better. They went right to dictionaries when they needed a word and had no trouble coming up to the front of the class to read their poem out loud. (Except for one kid.) This is going to be a lively group. I can already see a few distinct personalities and that is part of the fun of this type of work.

We brainstormed a list of positive words and I asked them each to pick a word for the day. I told them we’d do this every day that I come in. Next week I will have mini books for them to put their positive words into and keep.

This session is only an hour which I think is better than the 90 minutes I tried before. It means more sessions but I think I can keep their attention better. This group is going to keep me on my toes.

I had them vote on what they wanted to use for art, markers or colored pencils, and again this group picked pencils. I don’t know why it surprised me but it did. It’s good though since colored pencils don’t dry out and I already have a bunch of them.

I’m picking a positive word for each day that I visit them too. For the first visit my word is: POTENTIAL.

These kids are filled with it. I just want to point them in the right direction so they can see it too.

Thursday, January 21, 2010|Categories: Incarcerated Teen Poets 2010|Tags: , , , , |13 Comments

31 Blogs You Might Not Know – Laura Salas (for real this time)

(Yesterday I goofed and had the wrong title with the wrong post. Apologies to both Don and Laura.)
I think every poet needs to be reading this blog by Laura Salas. Why? Because Laura not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. Somehow, in-between raising a family and doing a tremendous amount of work-for-hire projects and teaching both on and offline, she is crafting the life of a working poet. And she shares that journey with her readers, the good, the bad, and the ugly. She also shares a tremendous amount of original (and wonderful) poetry.A couple of my favorite posts include her recent original villanelle Wounded and this original poem, Recipe for a Poetry Book, A Poem for Lee Bennett Hopkins.

Laura encourages everyone to get into the poetry habit with her weekly (every Thursday) photo poetry prompt for 15 Words or Less Poems.

Tell Laura I said hello when you stop by.

Saturday, December 12, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , |2 Comments

Friday Five – The Art Edition

There’s so much to say I could do two editions but I think I will focus on art today.

1. I’ve now gone to three sessions of what I am going to call art workshop though our fearless leader Lori Krein bills it as a collage class. It’s exactly what I needed, a slightly structured, caring and nurturing artistic environment. The group is small, I think there are seven of us, just about right for introverted me. We come to class to work on a variety of collage, decoupage or assemblage projects. I am almost finished with my first landscape. (My art leader Lori has an assemblage in this art contest sponsored by Michael’s. She’s trying to win a trip to New York. Maybe you could help her out by voting? Thanks!)

2. At the retreat I went to last month I talked to my friend Deborah Nourse Lattimore (who is a brilliant artist by the way) about introducing art into my life. This was before I found the collage class. She stressed the importance of playing with art without trying to “make” art. Play is hard for me. I’ve never been very good at it. But I am trying. And I know the art play will help my writing play. I think I love collage because it reminds me of playing in mud. I don’t want to wear gloves – I want to feel the matte medium sliding between my fingers. It makes me feel like a little kid again. And now, everywhere I go, I look at things as a potential canvas, or potential items to use for an assemblage. I used to collect odds and ends like this before, rocks and twigs and pieces of nature that intrigued me. I saved them and saved them and then suddenly, they were gone. I think I had been saving with the intent of having “enough” to do something “perfect” and when I realized that would never happen, I threw them all away. So I am collecting again but hopefully with a different attitude.

3. I’ve been reorganizing the old craft supplies I have and buying a few new ones, like my first set of watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons, a bottle of Gesso, some acrylic paint (yikes) and even a couple of big canvases (only because they were on sale). Most of that is for some ideas I have on creative art journals. Some people do a vision board, I am doing a vision journal, or perhaps a series of small vision boards for various aspects of my life. I got the big canvases so I can try my hand at some larger collage landscapes at home. I’ve been looking at the handmade paper on this site, trying to narrow the purchase down to a reasonable amount. Ha! I’ve also been going through my stash of magazines again. I do this a lot anyway, usually cutting out words to use when teaching poetry classes, but now I’ve added a stack of words just for me and pictures that speak to me that I might want to journal.

4. has blogged a lot lately about the creative journaling that she is doing. She turned me on to a wonderful video that I think is worth a watch if you are a newbie considering such a project. (The woman in the video has an extensive website and series of YouTube videos.) And Shrinking Violets is talking about creating visions for your coming year too.

5. What does all this have to do with writing? So much more than I can put into a Friday Five. I have lived too much of my life bound by constraints of what I shouldn’t do, what I was or wasn’t good at, what was expected of me. A constrained life can lead to constrained writing. If playing with art can free me to play with words, it is worth it at just about any price.

The biggest lesson for me to learn is that art is not math. There is no right answer. If I can learn this in art I hope to apply it to my writing.

Friday, December 11, 2009|Categories: Susan's Art|Tags: , |8 Comments

Waiting for Lightbulbs

In addition to her basic commands Cassie knows a few tricks like shake, crawl, take a nap, tell me a secret, wave goodbye and peek-a-boo. The fact that she can do these things doesn’t make me a brilliant trainer. It just makes me a good waiter.

Teaching a dog a trick requires a lot of patience. One you figure out what you want to teach the dog to do you have to break it down into steps and then link it together. And then you use up a lot of treats and a lot of time waiting for the light bulb to click on. Even with smart dogs like Cassie it takes time to get consistent results.

When teaching her something new I start off filled with proud mama enthusiasm about how wonderful it is going to be to show off the trick to my friends and how smart Cassie is so of course she’ll pick it up really quickly. And then the training starts. Suddenly I’m thinking, “She’s never going to get this. She’s never going to make the connection between the words take a nap and the fact that I want her to sit, then lay down, then lay on her side, then put her down and close her eyes until I tell her she can wake up. Not going to happen.”

But because many of my decisions in life are fueled by enthusiasm, I go ahead and try. I lure her with treats. I give command words. More treats. More waiting. A lot of near misses. And then…then I start to see the light bulbs going on. The first time I give the command “take a nap” and she goes through all the motions correctly I get all excited and scream YES! so loudly that she pops up and starts jumping on me. So I slow down again. And eventually she gets it. When she does it correctly she gets a treat. We race into my husband’s office and she performs again. And again. And now it’s a regular part of her routine.

I recently finished an eight week workshop that I used to jumpstart some stalled places in Flyboy. Once a week I turned in ten pages of my WIP to be workshopped by the editor, Jill Sanatpolo, who was leading the class, as well as fourteen other classmates. Once a week I read fourteen other stories. Once a week I got tons of feedback on my book. Now that the class is over I’m faced with trying to assimilate all that feedback. These were smart writers and smart critiquers and a smart editor so I have of questions they’ve asked me about the story, suggestions for improvements and brainstorms that I had asked for around certain plot issues.

I spent yesterday looking at all the feedback and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it all. First I merged everything into one giant file. Bad idea. All those comments in the margins made me feel even worse. Finally I decided to just break it down, week by week again. I created a new master file and took just one person’s feedback, merged it and then went step by step through every comment. Then I took a second person’s feedback and did the same thing. I know there are people who could read all the feedback, make a few notes, and then boom, move forward, but I don’t work that way. I have to see it all, touch it all. I have to comb through the sentences again and again and again until finally the light bulbs start to click on and I can feel myself begin to “get” it. By the time I got to the third person’s feedback I was starting to feel that little tingle that tells me something is connecting. The comment from one person and the question from another person triggered a different idea for me. I jotted down a few sentences. Then another. Then another. When I looked up again I’d written a few new paragraphs.

This is my process. A lot of trying. A lot of waiting. Waiting for light bulbs to turn on and shine a light on the path I need to take.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009|Categories: Of Dogs and Writing|Tags: , , |10 Comments

Poetry Friday Roundup

The Poetry Friday round-up is here so leave your links in the comments and I’ll round them up through-out the day. (Note, I’m on West Coast so expect some delay.)

I had so much fun doing this audio of the first poem in my book Hugging the Rock that I thought I would repost it for Poetry Friday. It’s called, NO ROOM. I hope you like it.
Read about the evolution of the poem NO ROOM from its inception here or read about the $1000 schloarship contest for teens who create a book trailer for Hugging the Rock here.

CREDIT LINE: Posted with permission from Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown.  Copyright © 2006 by Susan Taylor Brown, Tricycle Press, Berkeley, CA. www.tenspeed.com.

NOTE: I have removed the played due to some issues with LJ Embed. You can listen to it by going here instead.

The round-up – a little later than I planned but life had other ideas for me today.

Nandini Bajpai has an original about an Itchy Dog at Notes from New England.

Jama Rattigan is celebrating Johnny Appleseed’s birthday with a poem by Marge Piercy and 4 apple cake recipes:

It’s a feast for the eyes and the ears over at Educating Alice where Monica Edinger shares about the forthcoming book Sweethearts of Rhythm.

Julie Larios offers us a poem by Margaret Gibson titled “Autumn Grasses” – it’s based on an Edo painting by Shibata Zeshin.

A Year of Reading has a poem about fall by Georgia Heard, along with information about her upcoming blog tour!

Today at My World/Mi Mundo the celebration continues for Hispanic Heritage Month with a poem by celebrating Gabriela Mistral, the first Nobel Prize Latina Woman winner in 1945.

Laura Salas shares an original poem called “Without” (not the same as last week’s Without Rancor):
And this week’s 15 Words or Less poems are here.

Heidi Mordhorst is pointing everyone toward the important not-exactly poetry book If You Find a Rock  by Peggy Christian.

Gisele LeBlanc gives us an original poem for children, titled, “Magic Cure“.

Kurious Kitty shares “Invictus” and Random Noodling celebrates the International Day of Peace.

A Sleepy Elf is in with a poem about sleeping (and other things), called “Things” by William J. Smith

Linda is in with four original tanka.

Sara Lewis Holmes blogged about Sherman Alexie yesterday and today she is featuring his new collection of poetry, FACE, and one of the poems in it, “How to Create An Agnostic.”

Laura @ Author Amok says, “Donald Hall is reading here in central Maryland next weekend. I’m sharing his seasonal poem, “Ox Cart Man,” to welcome fall.”

You can find a little bit of Eugene O’Connell posted here.

Tabatha A. Yeatts offers some ancient Greek poetry by Sappho today.

An original cinquain for dog lovers by Kelly Polark.

Poetry Friday on The Stenhouse Blog shares “The Light of September”  by W. S. Merwin.

At Wild Rose Reader, Elaine Magliaro has a poem for Banned Books Week. It’s a revised version of Book Talk 2007, a poem about censorship that she wrote because of the kerfuffle caused by a certain word that Susan patron included in her book THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY. At Political Verses, Elaine has another original–“Dirty Dancing with the Stars: A Poem about Tom DeLay.” And at Blue Rose Girls, Elaine shares a poem by Elaine Equi titled “Ciao Bella Chocolate Sorbet.”

Semicolon is highlighting Felicia Hemans’ poem: “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck and its imitators.”

Karen Edmisten brings us Taylor Mali’s “Undivided Attention” this week.

Today at Teaching Authors April Halprin Wayland shares a lesson in writing about uncomfortable feelings and an original poem about jealousy.

Lectitans is in with “Against Cinderella” by Julia Alvarez.

Susan at Chicken Spaghetti chimes In with a post that links to poetry by Colin West, including two tongue twisters.

In Honor of Fall the Write Sisters share a favorite from Robert Louis Stevenson at

After reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, an enjoyable book about a poet with writer’s block who has to write an intro to an anthology of rhyming poetry, Emily Cook looked up Sara Teasdale and found a poem perfect for her day.

Jules from 7-Imp says, “I’m in today with a poem from a friend, Shannon Collins“(And some picture book art, too.)

Father Goose shares his original poem “Ars Longa, Vita Brevis“.

Jiill Corcoran put together Poetry for the Classrom: 6 fun poetry lessons for teachers and visiting authors.

Tracy Marchini has an original about a prom date related break-up.(not autobiographical! 🙂 )

Lorie Ann Grover has the I’m missing-my-daughter-blues and shares an original poem titled “Off to College” and at readertotz they have “There was a Little Guinea-Pig”.

Bildungsroman posted lyrics from the song More than Fine by Switchfoot.

Jone at Check It Out has some fun haiku riddles inspired by Tricia (The Miss Rumphius Effect)

Carol of Carol’s Corner is in with a review of Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough’s new book, A PLACE FOR WONDER

Friday, September 25, 2009|Categories: Poetry Friday|Tags: , , , , |53 Comments

Six on Saturday – It couldn't be more random

1. A friend commented on my not posting lately and I told her my brain was fried from deep thinking. It’s good to go deep but now I don’t know what to do with all that information. (Greg, some of it is coming your way.)

2. I went a solistice party today for a new friend I met on Twitter. Going to new places where I don’t know anyone is really tough on me but I went and I am glad I did, I met a few interesting people but most of all I met a young woman named Kristen who is a closet children’s artist and author. I think the Universe sent me there just so I could meet her. I saw the fire of the dream in her eyes. I hope I can help her fan the flames.

3. I think we are now hooked on True Blood.

4. I bought more Baby Tears for the shade garden today. It is one of the two non-natives in my yard. I feel a tiny bit guilty until I look at it and then I realize it makes me happy and that’s a good enough reason to have it in the yard.

5. There are caterpillars on my Hummingbird Sage. I do not think they are the good kind but I have not been able to ID them yet so I don’t want to pluck them off until I am sure. They are tiny, only about an inch long and not very fat.

6.  I was worried that I really didn’t have 6 things to share but I do. ha! Monday is the next class I am teaching (online) in Social Networking for Authors. More info here: http://www.backup.susantaylorbrown.com/classes.html

Sunday, June 21, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Five on Friday

I didn’t think enough ahead to find a poem for Poetry Friday this week but I will point you to this week’s roundup at Sara Lewis Holmes’ Read Write Believe.

So instead of poetry, I’ll try a Five on Friday before it turns into Six on Saturday.

1. Tomorrow I am teaching (with the talented Lynn Hazen) an in-person hands-on (bring your laptops) intensive class in social media. Then I need to decide if I am going to do another group class online or perhaps switch it to an individual, one-on-one email type of class. At the same time I am balancing my own potential online frustrations, wondering if I should keep just this blog going, start (restart) a writing only one elsewhere and keep LJ for community chit-chat? I am feeling unfocused in my own blog and, okay I’ll admit it, jealous of people who have a more single focused blog so they can pull everything together under one umbrella and it works for them. I don’t know that where the blog is hosted makes any difference in getting readers, I think it is all about the content. But still there are things that other blog sites offer more easily that are not available here on LJ.

2. I am making progress on Flyboy. I think the partial needs just one more chapter before I can go back and tear it all apart to see what’s missing, work on the synopsis, and get it out to my critique pals to read for me. Of course the degree of personal interest in working on Flyboy today is in direct opposition to the amount of stuff I have left to do for #1.

3. Speaking of critique pals, I am thinking about expanding my circle. I’m looking for a few novelists to maybe swap stories with in the future – contemporary YA or MG. This would be online/virtual exchanges. If you are interested, leave a note in the comments and I’ll get back to you with more details. If you write other stuff that’s fine but this group would be strictly for YA/MG contemporary novels.

4. There’s still time to leave your questions for Bonny Becker who will be writing a guest blog next week on writing picture books. Post your questions for Bonny here: http://susanwrites.livejournal.com/237583.html

5. I am trying to talk myself into or out of buying this.

Friday, June 5, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , |8 Comments

Thankful Thursday

Though I am thankful for many things today I thought I would pick just a few of the practical ones.

I’m thankful for my air conditioning. I’m a total hot weather wimp (opposite from when I was a kid) and need to keep the house at a cool temp for me to even be able to function.

I am thankful for mosquito fish who have gone to work on all the bugs in the pot ponds.

I am thankful that my husband, who works as a contractor, is still gainfully employed in this time of great financial unease.

I am thankful that I am able to be home writing, after my own layoff, supplementing my oft-sparse writing income with speaking and teaching and my work with Children’s Literature Network. I don’t think I ever formally announced this but I am now working part time for Children’s Literature Network and Winding Oak as a web editor. I love that it is connected to children’s literature and that it allows me to keep up with some web work which was the best part of my old day job.

I am thankful to[info]laurasalas  for the intro to the job at Children’s Literature Network and Winding Oak.
 

Thursday, April 23, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , |7 Comments

Memory Writing Prompt – Homework

Aha – this time I am getting my memory challenge post up before midnight. Whew!

Today’s post is inspired by being busy…overwhelmingly wonderfuly busy doing the things I love to do, writing and teaching and talking to great people about things we all love to do, like writing and teaching, well you get the idea.

Trying to get organized made me think about homework in school. I have always been deadline driven, much to my mother’s dismay. Those projects that teachers would give you several weeks to do? I’d wait until a couple of days before it was due, go into panic mode, and then work like a demon until I got it done and collected my good grade.

I can remember doing a report on Argentina and we had a family friend who often went there for business. There was so much I could have learned by asking him questions but leaving that report until the night before made it a wee bit impossible.

Math homework was always saved for the absolute last minute because I hated it so very much. Science was the same thing.

I always wanted to do my homework sprawled in front of the television set but I usually had to sit in the kitchen and work on it while my grandmother was fixing dinner.

hmm…looks like I don’t have as many homework memories as I thought I did. Probably because except for math I loved school. I didn’t actually MIND doing the homework, I just had a hard time getting started.

What about you? Do you have any homework memories from your childhood?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009|Categories: Memory Writing Prompts|Tags: , , |6 Comments

five random Friday thoughts

This are inspired by the random swirls going on in my brain at the moment. It’s not necessarily a pretty sight.

1. I haven’t written in two weeks. I don’t know if I have reasons or excuses. Probably both. This makes me grumpy.

2. The dog is in the doghouse for doing something rotten in my garden. No plants were ruined but I am not a happy camper at the moment. That makes me grumpy too.

3. I ordered two cases of my favorite chai from Santa Cruz and this batch is "off" in that the balance of ingredients is wrong and it is overwhelmingly too much ginger. The trouble with buying from a small company. That makes me, you guessed it, a little bit grumpy.

4. Tomorrow I’ll be in Walnut Creek at a local SCBWI event with Lynn Hazen teaching about the various online social media options and how to use them. That makes me happy. Lynn is a wonderful author and teacher and we’ve had such fun preparing our material. I’m really looking forward to spending time with her and sharing what I know. This makes me very happy.

5.  I will soon be teaching an online class on the various online presence and social media options, how authors could and should be using them with ways to participate and yet still have time to write. Leave me a comment if you want to be notified when the class is being offered. I’ve been wanting to offer an online class for quite some time and I’m excited about bringing this one forward. This makes me very happy.

Friday, March 20, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , |8 Comments

Friday Five – The Random Writing Edition

A few of the irons in my writing fires:

1. Working on Flyboy, the YA novel, with a personal deadline of 2/28 to get the next two 2 chapters written, the first 5 chapters revised and the synopsis done.

2. Looking around for more work-for-hire projects. I’m basically searching online because it feels awkward to ask friends about it when I know they are scrambling for their work.

3. Working on short stories for magazines. Actually recycling and revising old stuff that I am now writer enough to improve.

4. Playing around with essays which is where much of my writing starting way back when writing essays for the parenting market.

5. Exploring the possibilities of teaching an online class which means exploring the various topics I might teach. Nothing definite in my head yet but I’m open to suggestions.

Friday, January 30, 2009|Categories: Random|Tags: , |4 Comments

Poetry Friday – Incarcerated Teens Group Poem

I recently completed teaching a series of seven sessions in a poetry workshop for incarcerated teens and on the last day they spent nearly an hour writing the following group poem. Though I posted it in my blog post on Wednesday when I talked about the session, I wanted to post it again today as it really touched my heart.

Poetry
has a beautiful life to it.
You sound like happiness, sadness, love
taste like fresh strawberries and feel like soft skin, sandpaper, a brick wall.

Poetry is all the colors of the rainbow
and smells like freedom, incarceration, a sexy girl.

Oh poetry, you drive me crazy.

You make me want to scream, to feel, to heal.

You look like sunshine and moonlight in the city.

Poetry is feelings on paper.

The round-up today is at Adventures in Daily Living.