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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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 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.

Read about session #1

Read about session #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?" When I 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.

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 – "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. I put 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.

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.

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.

Go here if you’re interested in reading about more of my experiences teaching poetry to incarcerated teens.

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  and begun my work on the Sketchbook project where I hope to combine words and art.

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.

Poetry Push – List Poems

Today starts a new weekly feature on my blog, a little Poetry Push to help you warm-up your poetic muscles for the day. This also 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 recylce, 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.)

Every Tuesday I’ll post one of my cards which I hope you will use as a prompt to create a list poem in the comments, just like  does with her 15 Words or Less Poems on Thursdays.  Please sign your name with your poem so I can point to them all in the round-up for Poetry Friday.

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.

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)

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.

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.

 was asking about poetry books we might have bought for ourselves or received as gifts for Christmas. I just posted mine in response to her but thought I would add them here, since many of my new habits for 2011 involve poetry.

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:

• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 1
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 2
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 3
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 4
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 5
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 6
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 7
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 8
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 9
• Incarcerated teens poetry 2010 class 1/session 10

trees4, originally uploaded by susanwrites.

I wish I had thought to take pictures of the beginning but since this still has a ways to go to be finished, I thought I’d start documenting it now. This is all done with paper.

This project is teaching me a lot about scale (whoops) and that doing water is hard and that doing the leaves on trees is great therapy.

After I finish the leaves on the tree on the left I’ll go back to the water and try to figure out how to improve the little rocks. Then some bushes scattered around.

I confess, National Poetry Month wiped me out, but in a good way. I met the challenge of writing (and posting) a poem a day about the father I had never known, even though my memories to mine from were very thin. I’m proud of myself for that accomplishment and of course, still rejoicing in the unexpected bonus the project brought me by helping me make contact with so many people from my father’s side of the family, most especially, my sister Lori, who oddly enough has the same last name as me even though Brown is not the family name.

I want to thank each and every one of you who read and commented on the series of blogs posts and those who read and didn’t comment and those that sent emails. Your support of my emotional project really helped and for those of you who have asked, yes, I am working on pulling the poems into a book.

I hadn’t intended to take a week off to recover but it looks like that’s what I’ve done so I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ve been poking around the Blogosphere, catching up on all the great poetry posts that have happened while I was in the midst of my own. So if you didn’t get the chance to read all the poetry posts last month, there’s still time. There’s no expiration date on blog posts.

Thank you to all the great poets and poetry lovers that made National Poetry Month such a success.

30 Poets/30 Days @ GottaBook
New GLBTQ Teen Poetry @ I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?
Poems about Teaching @ A Year of Reading
Poetry Book Giveaway @ Irene Latham
Poetry Makers @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Poetry Potluck @ Jama Rattigan’s alphabet soup
Poetry Tag @ Sylvia Vardell’s Poetry for Children
Poetry Postcard Project @ Jone MacCulloch
Thirty Days, Thirty Students, Thirty Poems @ Jone MacCulloch
Share a Poem @ Laura Purdie Salas
Original Poem-A-Day Challenge:  Mary Lee Hahn; Andromeda Jazmon; Jone MacCulloch; Elizabeth Moore; April Halprin Wayland

My personal challenge for National Poetry Month is to write
a poem a day about the father I have never known.

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

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 year 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

• Gregory K. will once again host 30 Poets/30 Days with previously unpublished poems by favorite children’s authors.
• Tricia Stohr-Hunt will interview 30 children’s poets. The Poetry Makers list is stellar!
• Lee Wind shares GLBTQ Teen Poetry.
• Jone MacCulloch shares Thirty Days, Thirty Students, Thirty Poems. Original poems by students. Jone will also again offer the Poetry Postcard Project where original student poems are sent out on decorated postcards. Request yours now.
• Check out Mary Lee Hahn’s daily poems about teaching each day in April. Also at A Year of Reading, Franki will review poetry books & share Poetry Month activities.
• Jama Rattigan is posting original poems & favorite recipes by some of the Poetry Friday regulars.
• Irene Latham will give away a favorite poetry anthology each poetry Friday during April.
• Laura Salas will post a children’s poem per day from a poetry book she loves.
• Sylvia Vardell will be inviting poets to play Poetry Tag by offering a poem for readers to enjoy, then "tag" a fellow poet who then shares her/his own poem that is connected to the previous poem.

  ORIGINAL POEM-A-DAY CHALLENGE
  Check these blogs daily for new original poems by the following people:
   

• Susan Taylor Brown
• Mary Lee Hahn
• Andromeda Jazmon
• Irene Latham
• Jone MacCulloch
• Elizabeth Moore
• April Halprin Wayland

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.