The Literate Teacher's Manifesto

I Speak Of The sweetness of raspberries and frogs scattering from my feet are dim reminders of my conversations with God. Sad country songs on the radio,  the grind of machinery, and a Beethoven moonlit sonata have somehow become you. I run through the damp grass, reveling in this rain on my skin and this smile that will not disappear. Stars appear at night unbidden; a supernova in close proximity; an undiscovered radio galaxy. And all the stars that have exploded before could not prepare me  for this celestial happening I cannot comprehend: This quivering of chest Tingle of nerve Eternal buzz of electricity defining this thing I would defy; this star that has come to rest, trembling and tentative, in the palm of my hand. I wrote this poem shortly after I met the man who would become my husband. I was taking astronomy classes at the time, and I was enamored of everything I was learning. The things I love make the...

Exhibitionism Surrounded by souls with blank faces, Watching my life unfold on the stage, an intensity stabs me, rends the scabs from my eyes to see what I've lost. Naked before all the pretty ones who have opened the windows of my ambivalence;  I feel unlocked in a fantasia  of wooden planks and tapestries. My hands shake like yours, Used to raking cleaving words out with  the happy dagger of my immortality as a pancake girl. Sweet, boy, when you tear me out with eyes like a tempest. Drown me into an ageless heroine. Metamorphosed again tonight  by the magic of my false impressionism. You should have been there... You missed quite a show. When I reread poetry from different periods of my life, it takes me no time at all to be able to identify what literature, art, and music were also shaping my identity at the time. This one is from a Shakespeare binge. You will notice several references. I was also listenin...

Back in February, I wrote this post  about a student of mine. It generated a lot of response, in comments and readership, and as I was flipping back through the posts I have written this year, I thought this would be a subject that's worth revisiting. We are in the second week of our last quarter, and David is in the running for most improved student (not just in my classroom). We actually had a conversation about him today at the lunch table. His attitude and general engagement with school is light years away from where he started. But, of course, I can't take credit for any of that, but I can tell you about his reading. David is currently reading his 11th book of the year (which is amazing). When we sat down together in January and set goals, neither of us expected him to make it past 10. Since our conversation in February, the whole tone of our reading conferences has changed. He is more positive about reading, less likely to answer questions with "Idunno," a...

One activity we do frequently in my ELA class is "talk back" to texts. That might take the form of disagreeing or simply adding to the discussion started by a work we are reading. Right after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, we read The Way It Is   by William Stafford, and I asked students to write about what their thread is. I found myself unable to compose an answer of my own, though. I dwelled on it until writing group that afternoon, when I finally found the voice to write a response. This poem is what I wrote. More so than a thread, Mr. Stafford, there is a trail I follow. It goes among things that stay the same. But it doesn't stay. People wonder what I am looking for. I don't know how to explain about the trail. It is made up of questions, like breadcrumbs. I think that others might see the trail too. But most choose not to look, or to direct their gaze upward to the benign sky. While I'm following the trail, I never feel lost. In...

Grace sits alone in the hot kitchen. languid flies sip sugar sweet tea stains butter beans boil in indolent pots and salvation steeps in a Mason jar on the Formica counter shot with gold. gray dustbunnies shit in corners junebugs spread indecent wings and fly away into the yellow sky to be yanked back and tied  to the malevolent fingers of children. peeled paint white fence stands creaking top rail fell down into weeds. rusted screen door spreads tentative fingers where concrete rots into gravel-- stained boots leave red mud clots on the welcome mat. This is not at all a good description of my grandmother's kitchen! It was written in response to a dream I had, where my grandmother's farmhouse (normally one of the most inviting places I know) was like a weird, "dark side" version of itself. It was a terrifying dream, and it stuck with me. The images were haunting, and I wanted to try and do them justice with language.  

I am running. In my legs breaking tendons Ligaments with a sound like torn silk Stretch as I snatch for pieces of you to hold. The gathering of fragile things; this is my harvest time. In a stasis of light My eyes are blind. I am the seer who cannot see. Weeping as time overflows its banks in its tide, your small white body. My father's hands, beaten and worn. My grandfather's memories. Grief is a lonely bedmate with cold feet, And I will not, I will not have this. The bridge supports me as I scatter Fragments of my heart to the winds Choosing a release.  The fragments skim away, leaving nothing behind but vacancy:  the emptiness of soul. This poem started as several journal entries in an old writer's notebook of mine. The entries were drawn from several traumatic events in my life: the death of a pet, the year my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, my grandfathers' (on both sides) battles with Alzheimers....

lackadaisical blues she smiles slowly--                                   opening her arms to embrace the sun                                   yawning with the soft                                   languid kisses of summer warmth she is lying in a field--                                   desiring the sun with all her might                                   stretching lazily and reaching                                   toward the skies she is worthless--...