A Pocket of their Own

Every year since 2007, I have celebrated National Poem in Your Pocket Day in April with my sixth grade students, but this year we were on spring break when the big day rolled around. We are in the middle of the 100 Day Writing Challenge, though, which in April is a new poetry exercise every day, so I posted the information and asked students to tell us what poem they chose and why, a kind of virtual celebration.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect, and so when I logged in last Thursday night to check on their progress, I was amazed and humbled by the quality of their choices and the consideration they had given to them. In fact, this group of kids did better than any other so far. Here are a few examples:

I chose the poem Kid, this is October, by Jeffrey Bean. This poem stood out to me by the word choice he uses. I liked when he said “You can swim one more time in the puddle of sun ” because that gives October coming a whole new perspective. This poem reminds me perfectly of how I felt when summer was ending and fall was coming. Finally, I liked this poem because it all flows so smoothly and just makes the poem better.

I chose a short haiku poem about forgetting the sorrows of your past and focusing on the present. This is how the poem goes:

What joy you will find
when you drop the yesterdays
and embrace today

I really like this poem because even though it is short, it has an important meaning that I think is a really good rule to live by. This poem always reminds me that I need to focus on the future and present especially, instead of living in the past. This poem has only three lines so I don’t have my top four lines, although I like that last line that says to embrace today.

I chose Caged Bird by Maya Angelou. I chose this poem because first of all I love Maya Angelou she is a strong female figure and is also black. The other reason I chose this poem is because this has a personal connection to me because this is literally the first poem I ever read, my first thought was the grammar was wrong and I LOVED it.

I chose “You Lose Something Every Day” by Willie Perdomo. The reason why I chose this poem was because at first it didn’t make sense to me but when I read it carefully I noticed that it is true. You do lose something every day even if it isn’t physical with you. I felt like this poem was trying to tell me how we also lose stuff in our mind or how we forget stuff. In this poem, something I also noticed is that each line has two important words. For example,”the finish on your way to the line” the two important words are Finish and Line and if we put it together it spells out finish line. Anyway I enjoyed understanding this poem and I really liked it.

War Within Myself by Daniel K.I chose this poem because "fighting a war within myself" is very common with people today, even me. I was diagnosed with anxiety a couple years ago, which felt like a new war had begun. Walking on eggshells relates to me because I feel like I need to say the right thing, at the right time, or else I mess it all up, which I have before. Tearing friendships apart relate to myself as well because I don't want to mess something up so badly, to the point where a beautiful friendship or relationship has ended. And I have one particular relationship that is so special to me that I don't want to end.

Glamour Boy

We threw open the doors and windows this morning to let in the spectacular spring weather. Our place is sheltered, but there is no denying the proximity of the neighbors, so I wasn't surprised to hear voices floating in through the kitchen window. The baby talk was another matter, though.

Yes! We think you're beautiful. Yes, we do. You are gorgeous!

I stopped chopping parsley and looked out, but I couldn't see who it was. The praise continued. I stepped into the dining room. "Is someone talking to one of our pets?" I asked Heidi, who was reading on the couch with a view of the front door. 

She grinned and nodded. 

"Who are they talking to?" 

"Milo!" she told me, "and he is just sitting there loving it!"

Journeys

Air travel gives lie to the aphorism about journeys and destinations: it's rare that I step on a plane without looking forward to disembarking. Having flown back and forth from the Twin Cities twice in the last few weeks, I have become quite a fan of those little inflight entertainment screens. There is nothing like watching a trashy movie to wile away the flight time.

Plugging in my earbuds and settling back as the opening credits roll on a movie that Heidi and I have chosen to skip reminds me a little bit of the bygone days of air travel when a single movie was screened for all. Back then, when we lived overseas, any movie they happened to show was new to us, and I was often riveted by films I never would have paid to see. Those movies, not a single one of which I can recall at the moment, also helped pass the time away until we landed and resumed our lives.

Tonight, my choice was The Notebook, a 2004 film that almost everyone except me has seen. Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling were beautiful babies in their 20s back then, and the tale of Ally and Noah was engaging in its melodrama. I was actually happy that our flight time was longer than scheduled, because I got so close to the ending before my screen went dark. By then, it was James Garner and Gena Rowland whose fate was in the balance, but I still came home and Netflixed those last 12 minutes, and it was with a tear in my eye for all the journeys that ended tonight that I sat down and began to write.

Pescacheegan

noun: 1. One who eats a primarily plant-based diet, but makes exceptions for fish and CHEESE! 2. Heidi

Pink and Brown

"There's our new Dunkin Donuts," my mom pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago when i was visiting. Two squat earth tone cubes adorned with bright pink and orange Ds occupied the corner to our right. "It's big news around here."

She was right, because on the way from the airport the other day, her friend remarked on the place as well. "Have you seen our new Dunkin Donuts?"

"It's just called Dunkin now," Heidi replied with information I was totally unaware of.

To be honest, I was considering the last time I had been in a Dunkin Donut. It had been a while, but I did remember the first time I was in one.

The chain came to our New Jersey area when I was 8 or so. The nearest one was about 20 minutes away, but located near the station of the High Speed Line train that my dad sometimes took to work. If he was running too late to catch the bus in the morning, my mom would throw us in the car to drop him off, and our reward was sometimes a trip to Dunkin Donuts.

We always got the same thing-- peanut donuts, which were a novelty back in those days of jelly, glazed, or powdered. And if my dad needed a ride from the station at night? Well, Baskin Robbins was right there, too. 

Spring Forward

Tan patches of unmelted snow dotted still barren farm fields like sand traps on a huge brown golf course as we drove south to Rochester on Minnesota 52 this morning, but by 11:30 the April sun was strong enough to make sitting on the sheltered terrace almost too warm. Fortunately we had frappucino, iced tea, and sun glasses to help us enjoy our hour in the sun before heading back indoors for most of the afternoon. But it was still close to 70 degrees when we emerged at 6 PM, and the lingering daylight of the north held the evening shadows at bay until after we arrived safely back at home after a long, but not unpleasant, day.

Priority Passenger

Just two weeks ago I landed at Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport as the Twin Cities were gearing up for the Final Four Finale, and it was kind of a crazy scene. Things were considerable calmer here this afternoon, dead almost, and as Heidi and I hiked from Terminal G to the baggage claim, I was hopeful that we would be out on the curb, in the car, and on the way to my mom's in no time.

The gathering crowds circling the carousels should have warned me otherwise, but it took a good ten minutes before we discovered that Air Force One was on the tarmac with the chief aboard, and that meant that all ramp traffic was on hold. Our baggage would not be on its way until President Trump was on his way to a campaign rally celebrating tax day.

In an attempt to keep informed about a situation where I was powerless, I turned to Twitter. President Trump, will you please hurry up and get out of Minneapolis airport so we can board our plane to go home? pleaded Diane.

Finally, a reporter on the plane tweeted that the TV coverage of the fire in Notre Dame had captured the president's attention, but that he had disembarked. A little while later the harsh triple honk of a conveyer belt being activated drifted down the cavernous baggage claim, stranded travelers jumped to their feet, and we knew it wouldn't be long before we would be on our way.