(Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post)

This week in anticipation of National Poetry Month the Washington Post published Garrison Keillor’s piece, “The Secret Delight of Poetry.” What a treat! His dry wit and wry sense of humor are evident in full force and it was an utter delight to read from start to finish. Here’s one small excerpt:

“This is the power of poetry. Poets get the girl.

Football heroes get concussions or need hip replacements. My classmates who played football are walking with canes and moaning when they sit down, and they find it hard to figure out the 10 percent tip at lunch. We poets go sashaying along, perpetually 17, lost in wonder at the ordinary, astonished by streetlights, in awe at lawn ornaments, bedazzled by baristas releasing steam into milk for the lattes.”

The man can write, can’t he? I’ve read that final phrase over and over–“bedazzled by baristas releasing steam…”  Ahhh…. There is also a more serious vein to his piece, though, hidden among the hyperbole.

“This is what you learn during Poetry Month. You may lose the vote, fall into debt, suffer illness and remorse, feel lost in the crowd, and yet there is in language, everyday language, a source of such sweet delight…”

This year, more than most, I’ve been reminded of the power of language, of words–the power to explain, the power to mislead, the power to divide and the power to unify. I’ve written to explore this new world we live in and to express my concern, my sorrow, my confusion and sometimes, my anger. I’ve written to share moments of joy and gratitude and to explore relationships and ideas. And sometimes I’ve written to experience the sheer beauty of playing with words and combining them in a new or unusual way. I’ve found solace and clarity in writing, and above all else, I’ve found community.

With this post I’m finishing the TWT Slice of Life Challenge: I’ve now blogged 31 days in a row.  I finish feeling enriched by participating and feeling incredibly thankful for online writing communities–places where I can join with others in a celebration of all the “sweet delights” of language, both poetic and prosaic.

If you’re interested in delighting in poetry, head on over to this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup hosted by the wonderful Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at her blog The Poem Farm. Take some time to browse through Amy’s rich home to all things poetic. You’re sure to come away delighted!

March SOLC–Day 30

If you can write a book spine poem, why not write a poem from e-mail subject headings?  I probably have an advantage since I have about 2,000 e-mails in my Inbox, but I only culled from the first 100. Also, I limited myself to my work e-mail. My personal e-mail would have been more fun, but I wanted to increase the challenge!

Here are two:

Whoa—did you see the forecast?
Heads up!
Conferences
Adventure Time

Taste Bud Makeover
How was it??
Overprocessed

What can you create from your Inbox?

Whoa! The combination of daily blogging, teaching and parent teacher conferences just about does me in each March! It’s difficult to find time to think this week, much less time to write! It’s also easy to focus on the daunting piles of work and the crazy schedule and forget to be grateful for all the happy, little things. So, in an effort to reset the lens, here are three things I was grateful for yesterday:

1. I pick my clothes out at night for the next day. Almost every evening I whine, “Kurt, what should I wear to school tomorrow?” It’s become a bit of a joke. His standard response is, “A black bra and pink panties.” He thinks that’s hilarious because I hate the word “panties” and because it’s so patently unhelpful. Last night, however, I walked into my room, looked in the closet, and an outfit practically fell off the hangers into my outstretched hands. That’s a reason for some gratitude!
2. This year I moved up from teaching first grade to teaching fourth. In the afternoons after I walk my class to the buses, the K-2 wing is exiting the building. On my way back in I often see my former students and receive smiles, greetings and lots of hugs. Today’s count was three huge hugs and loads of smiles!
3. Despite three no-shows and two re-schedulings today, I’m halfway done with conferences. I received a lovely sincere apology e-mail from one of my no-shows. “Dear Mrs. Hogan, I’m so sorry I missed parent teacher conference this morning.  I told C. to tell you I was a bonehead, but he refused.  It completely slipped my mind until we were out the door.  I know your time for these things is valuable, so let me apologize again.” Loved it!

Two more days in the challenge and two more days of conferences! It’s looking increasingly possible that I’ll make it through!  Hope you’re finding many things to be grateful for in your days.

March SOLC–Day 28

Right now, it’s 4:17 am. I’m sitting at the table in front of my computer. It’s still dark outside and the interior lights reflect off the windows. When I look up, I see my outline and below it, the apple icon on my computer glows back at me, floating oddly in the dark window. My coffee steams gently in my favorite Quebec City mug and periodically I hold it in my hands, enjoying the warmth.

Spring seems to be malingering this year. I’m tired of paying oil bills, so I’m going with a two-pronged heating approach. At my feet the space heater whirrs and hums and the heated air wafts upward into the chilly room. My cat settles in front of me, content to divert some of the air flow. The radiators click, doing their part to bring the room up to a reasonable temperature. In the background NPR plays and I hear yet more concerning news. I try to push it aside and focus on the day. What can I do about it right at this moment? On the other hand, before school starts I need to pay some bills, prep for conferences, and finish lesson planning. Cut EPA funding, really? 

It’s a typical morning. Coffee. Radio on. Cat. Multiple heat sources. Controversial news. E-mail. Writing. The self talk is similar as well. Ok, you can only write until 4:30–Ok, 4:45 at the latest. I mean it! You have to get those bills out today–no more delaying!– and finish planning that math lesson. Don’t forget to write Anne about the taxes. Coal plant emissions!!!??  Really!? Don’t go there right now. Ok. Ok. Remember you have to find a passage for X to use with his new plan. That needs to start today as well. Also, you have to watch that MEA testing video this morning. Blah. Blah. Blah. You get the picture.

Each morning I spend a lot of mental energy trying to discipline myself to do what I’m supposed to do rather than what I want to do. The beauty of mornings is that it all seems possible at that time–or at least most days it does. But the clock ticks inexorably forward and it’s now 4:48. Oops! The Must do’s and should-have-done’s are clamoring ever louder in the background. I’m off to throw them a bone!

A huge thank you to  Anna, Beth, Betsy, Deb, Kathleen, Lisa, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
To read more slices, check out twowritingteachers.org

March SOLC- Day 26

Saturday night we attended our daughter’s University of Maine Singers concert. I started to write about the event in prose but it quickly shifted to a poem. It’s funny how that happens sometimes.

Concert

The audience settled into their seats
materials shifting and sighing
muffled seat springs creaking
Then silence descended
an expectant hush
the singers strode onto the stage
filling the risers
poised
still
Until…
the conductor raised his hands…
Breathe
then
dropped
them
and those voices, those glorious voices,
intertwined in thunderous beauty,
lifted and soared
filling the hall
spilling out into the frosty night
My heart swelled with the notes
as I watched my daughter
singing in the midst of that choir
and I was so glad,
so fiercely glad,
that she has this:
this music
this community
this gift of song

Molly Hogan (c) 2017

Here’s A rehearsal clip from the University of Maine Singers. Click if you’d like to enjoy an informal “taste” of their singing.

March SOLC–Day 26

Have you ever noticed that sometimes an unintended word pops out of your mouth? I’m not talking the four-letter variety either. Or the common mistake of calling one of your children by their brother’s or sister’s name…or the dog’s for that matter. I’m talking about this lovely phenomenon that seems to happen to me with some regularity these days. That moment when you say a word that is not at all what’s intended…and makes no sense. It worries me some. It would worry me more if my husband weren’t doing it, too. Since he is, I’m just tacking it up to one of the joys of the aging process.

Yesterday, we spent the whole day together visiting our kids in Orono, Maine. Throughout the day we laughed at a few mis-said words. Mostly, we just help each other out and supply the correct word. Sometimes it’s a bit more humorous. After one such moment, I’d said, “This aging stuff is gonna be great! Before too long, we’re going to be babbling together like idiots. Hopefully we’ll still at least  be able to understand each other!”

After our daughter’s concert that night, we returned to our hotel room to settle down for the night. I was first in bed, enjoying the luxury of a well-heated room. (note: At home, old, old house+Maine winter+ poor insulation+kids in college=low, low thermostat setting=Brrrr!) 

Ahhhhh…It’s so nice and warm in here. Ohhhh… maybe I can take my socks off. 

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

What? Oh, no! My warm and cozy thoughts scattered and an icy finger of dread skittered down my spine. I glanced up quickly, knowing what I would see. Dreading it. Yes, there he was. Just as I thought. Kurt was standing over at the thermostat, his trigger finger on the down button. (He prefers to sleep in a temperature that’s a bit more… Arctic.)

Beep.

He hit the button again and the fan engines revved up ominously. A stream of cool air wafted through the room almost instantaneously. I shivered before it even reached me.

“NO!” I wailed, “I was just thinking how nice it was to be warm. I was even going to take my socks off!”

“Not your socks!” he teased.

“Yes! And there aren’t any extra blankets either,” I whined.

“Did you check the closet?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said plaintively, adding a dramatic shiver for effect.

“How about the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to call down and get you one?” he asked. ” I’ll even sprinkle the blanket on you when it gets here.”

Sprinkle the blanket?

We both burst out laughing.

Sprinkle??

Yup. It’s gonna be fun!

SOLC–Day 25

I can’t imagine how it was to send kids off to college and into their adult lives in the days before technology. I love the instant check-ins and links that technology offers. When my son started college, Facebook was still relatively popular in his age group. I became a full-out Facebook stalker. Each night I’d check his page. Had he made a friend? Ohhhh!  Look!  Two new friends–they look so nice!  I laughed at myself but I kept on doing it. I found it reassuring (thankfully!) and it eased the sting of his absence. I’d watch to see what else he was posting about and we texted back and forth frequently.

These days, my son has graduated and is far less apt to respond promptly, so our text messages have a lag time of …a couple of days… or even a week. We tend, instead, to talk on the phone during his long work commute. On the other hand, I message and text almost daily with my college-age daughters. We have ongoing conversations and quick “I miss you” or “I love you” messages and check-in’s (“How was your day?”).

This week, knowing we were coming up to see her concert, my daughter sent a message:

Hmmm….. I wonder what’s coming next. 

After laughing at the hot cross bun request (we’re all addicts of the amazing hot cross buns that are produced at a local bakery), I responded.

I paused here, uncertain how to respond. I had assumed that she wanted pizza when we were visiting.  How foolish of me! I’m clearly not in tune with the tech. advances of pizza ordering in college. In my day…well, never  mind. We continued our conversation.

I had to laugh aloud here — and read the comment to my husband. We both chuckled.

“Are you going to do it?” he asked.

“I don’t know….”

I wasn’t sure how to respond…so I delayed and merely agreed with her remark about her responsibility, wondering how she’d adapt her plea next.

Her response arrived quickly:

After laughing again at her dramatic exaggeration, I did what any self-respecting teacher would do –at least one who didn’t feel like saying “No” and who really needed to focus on getting report card comments written–I threw my husband under the bus.

March SOLC–Day 24
A huge thank you to  Anna, Beth, Betsy, Deb, Kathleen, Lisa, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
twowritingteachers.org

It’s been a week.

At the end of a long day earlier this week, I told a student she needed to clean up under her desk. She suffers from materials mismanagement at the best of times, but on this particular day, it looked like her desk had exploded. Or maybe vomited. At any rate, she had managed to avoid the task once already, and I was not happy about the continuing mess and she was not happy about cleaning it up.

Grudgingly, she started picking up. A pencil here. A scrap of paper there. She stopped to chat to a classmate. I redirected her and stooped down to pick up a few things.

“I’ll help out,” I said. “Why don’t we start with the pencils and pens?”

“You know,” she pronounced with a snap, turning to look at me, “I hate to break it to you. But learning isn’t fun!”

I deposited a handful of pencils in her pencil bag. “Well,” I replied, “I’m sorry you feel that way.  But even if you don’t think it’s fun, having a good attitude can make it more fun.” (Not my most brilliant comment.)

“No!” she said, not missing a beat.  “That’s not true! You’re lying. You’re a liar.”

(I guess she didn’t think it was a great comment either.)

It’s been a week.

March SOLC–Day 23

They say a picture paints a thousand words. I snapped this one during one of our recent blizzards, and I hope it counts for at least a few, because right now it’s about all I can come up with.  I can totally relate to this poor cardinal, buffeted by the winds and clinging to a branch with its wee feet. With report cards this week, a school concert tonight, parent-teacher conferences and MEA testing next week, and the ongoing SOL challenge, I, too, am just holding on and trying to ride out the storm!

March SOLC–Day 22
A huge thank you to  Anna, Beth, Betsy, Deb, Kathleen, Lisa, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
twowritingteachers.org

Amy Warntz inspiration has struck again! Her recent post about a treasured photo reminded me of an incident that happened at my house, not too long ago. The girls were home on break. My youngest daughter was looking through a stack of old photos that she’d discovered somewhere. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed, holding up the picture for her sister to see.

Then she continued, “This one’s perfect! Dad’s still talking…”She paused and laughed, “… and Mom’s reachin’ for the wine!”

I’m not sure if this translates well without knowing us, but it still makes me laugh.