sounds in a basement

Greetings, Poetry Friends! No, this post is not about my likely peptic ulcer, which came with a 2-week headache and has now thankfully calmed down, UNLIKE just about everything in my immediate environs here in Maryland, just 7 miles from the White House. 

No, this post might also be titled "Why I Do the Work I Do" and I hope you'll never get tired of me sharing raw poetry by kids in the wild, uncut gems shaken loose by 30 minutes of reading, playing and writing in a WHISPERshout Workshop.

This residency is with 2nd graders and is focused on Valentine's Day-adjacent themes of friendship, inclusion and social-emotional learning, with a hefty dose of figurative language to move us past "I like Allison. She is my best friend. We play together," if possible. (For a few 2nd graders, writing these 3 sentences is what's possible. No shade.)  So we read poems that use straightforward examples of this, like "A Purple Place" from my book SQUEEZE, and we play with describing emotions using this little guide:

Then off they go to write, and some kids need a reminder to pick up their pencil, and some kids need to show me their 60 words about chocolate chip cookies after three minutes ("I'm done!") and some kids don't say boo, and then I get home and find a poem by Zeke titled "sounds in a basement." If you know 2nd grade boys, you'll understand my "oh geez here it comes jump scare horror movie poem"--and then I read this:

sounds in a basement

are clicks and dings for games,

people talking on tv,

people talking in real life,

people doing workouts.

there are lots of sounds 

in a basement. but there 

is one that is the best,

love moving from person

to person.

Go on, shut down all the medical research, fire all the scientists at the NIH.* I know the cure for peptic ulcers, for plenty of other ailments: Take one poem--one raw, uncut gem of a 2nd grade poem--and be healed.

******

Thanks to Laura Purdie Salas and her beautiful new board books for hosting us today! And now that you're feeling, I hope, a bit restored and determined, here are a couple of ways to act on that, because *no, don't!

5Calls app: easily contact your reps with prepared scripts on your choice of issues

iPhone

Android   

INDIVISIBLE'S Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink

and next Friday...