Maeve's Sessions Reading

Next week, I'll be reading from Brief Nudity in Minneapolis for the Maeve's Sessions series. Hope to see you there!

4th Grade Centos

Today was my last with the 4th graders, and to wind up the residency we created centos in each class. Read all about it here, and thanks to the teachers for making me feel welcome!

I hope to be back at Skinner West next year. Happy (almost) summer, everyone!

Hands on Stanzas: 4th Grade, Week 9 + All Schools Reading

Last week, in addition to teaching the second-to-last classes with my 4th grade students at Skinner West, the Poetry Center hosted its end of the year All Schools Reading celebration at the Cultural Center. Three 2nd graders from earlier in the residency, along with three readers from my current 4th grade classes were able to attend, and everyone did a terrific job! I was similarly impressed by the student poets from other participating schools; it was great to meet my students' parents, as well as other host teachers involved with the program, and to hobnob with fellow poets-in-residence. It was an amazing night!

Audience at All School Reading

 

 

For last week's classes, we read and discussed "One Train May Hide Another" by Kenneth Koch, and students wrote poems about things that are hidden. Here are some of them at work:

Mrs. Carlson's class

Looking forward to this week's classes!

Hands on Stanzas: 4th Grade, Week 8

Last week, we read Delmore Schwartz's sonnet, "The Beautiful American Word, Sure," and Skinner students wrote poems about their own favorite words.

Incredible stuff!

Hands on Stanzas: 4th Grade, Week 7

Last week, my 4th grade students at Skinner West read Jane Kenyon's poem, "My Mother" and then wrote about family members. Read all about it here.

Excited Utterance

The spring edition of Excited Utterance is upon us! The May 18th show features myself, as curator, host and co-reader, along with Kenyatta Rogers and Kathleen Rooney. Full bios are available on the homepage as well as the Facebook event.

7 pm at Uncommon Ground, 3800 N. Clark Street. Reservations are highly recommended: 773-929-3680. Hope to see you there!

The Return of Hands on Stanzas and the Poetry Center Online

Last day with Mrs. Beaudry's class

I hadn't posted anything about my ongoing Hands on Stanzas residency at Skinner West (which continues through the end of May) in over a month until yesterday. Back at the end of March, I began having problems with the site, and after scrupulous investigation by Poetry Center bigwigs it was determined that it had been hacked. (My students were intrigued by the prospect of hacking a poetry site. I said the least the perpetrator could have done was post some bizarre verse in an attempt to foist it off as legit, but I also added that if that had been the case, this being poetry and all, nobody might have noticed! That's a compliment, BTW.)

The upside of this is that the site has finally undergone a long-needed facelift. It's brighter, cleaner, and more navigable now -- please check it out, and in particular the work of my students to date, including my last 2nd grade classes and all the poems from 4th graders through today.

More to come!