Tag: Slice of Life

Slice of Life: A Golden Shovel

Catherine Flynn7 Comments

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
~ Joseph Chilton Pearce ~

Every day, we encourage our students to swallow their fear and take risks. And every day, they take them. But how often are we that brave? Hitting the “Publish” button on our blog posts is one type of risk,  but this is usually only an individual risk. This year I decided to be brave and take part in Irene Latham’s Progressive Poem. “A poem that travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a line, beginning April 1,” this is the poem’s 8th year. (You can read more about this amazing project here.) Matt Forrest Esenwine got us started by challenging us to use “only FOUND lines” from songs!

I have been in a panic about my line all month. I feared my line wouldn’t measure up and I would let Irene, Matt, and all the other poets down. But I’d made a commitment. So I dusted off CDs I haven’t listened to in years, watched hours of YouTube videos, and read reams of liner notes. I gathered a list of lines I thought might work. But the poem is a living entity. It changes direction often. And it changed right before it was my turn to add my line! I did find a line I was happy with, but I had several unused lines that I really liked. I decided to use one as a strike line for a Golden Shovel poem. (BTW, the Progressive Poem is with Penny Klosterman today. Check it out here.)

This line is from “Upside Down,” the first track on Jack Johnson’s Curious George soundtrack.

We’ll sing and dance to mother nature’s songs

Also, happy birthday to William Shakespeare! And even though this post isn’t about him (although he was a master borrower), where would we be without the Bard?

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life: Making Space

Catherine Flynn7 Comments

 

On a recent episode of On Being, Krista Tippett’s sublime podcast, Lawrence Kushner explained the concept tzimtzum, or “god’s self-contraction to make spaces within god for creaturely beings to live” (Read more here.) (For the record, I am not Jewish, so I hope I haven’t muddled this or offended anyone.) Kushner went on to say that this idea manifests itself in our daily life when we make a space to create “so that something you love will have room to grow.” I love this.

Making space in my life to create, to write, has been an incredible challenge recently and I almost feel like I don’t even remember how to write anything. But I’m not giving up.

Undergrowth with Two Figures, Vincent van Gogh, 1890. Cincinnati Art Museum, via Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by Irene Latham’s Artspeak! theme of happy, I scrolled through Google Arts & Culture until I found a painting that brought a smile to my face. I found Undergrowth with Two Figures by Vincent van Gogh completely enchanting. I longed to step into the painting and gather armfuls of flowers. Instead, I gathered inspiration for this haiku:

Beneath silver trees
coruscating daffodils
illuminate the day

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19: Making a Poem Out of Legos

Catherine Flynn8 Comments

Another March is coming to a close. After five years of successfully blogging every day, this is the second year that I haven’t been able to keep up with the pace of slicing. As my friend Heidi so wisely stated: “It might be okay to miss a day, because, you know, LIFE.”

And meetings. Have there always been so many meetings? It seems like they’ve multiplied exponentially lately. At a recent meeting in our Library/Media Center, I happened to be sitting at the end of the row, near a table where a bin of Legos awaited the next day’s students. They intrigued me because they were many more colors than I remember from my children’s Legos. There were brown bricks, orange bricks, gray bricks! I confess, my mind started to wander. The next thing I knew, this draft of a poem was in my notebook.

Brown earth thaws, softens
Green shoots peek out of the soil
Gray clouds skitter across the sky, unveiling an
Orange sunset blanketing the sky, cradling a
Yellow crescent moon.

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Naomi Shihab Nye is absolutely correct: “Poems hide…What we have to do is live in a way that lets us find them.”

What I didn’t know as I jotted down my ideas was that I was inadvertently warming up for Mary Lee Hahn‘s National Poetry Month project, “Playing With Poetry!” And though I doubt I’ll get a poem up every day, I’m looking forward to joining in the fun!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19 & Poetry Friday: Pancakes!

Catherine Flynn18 Comments

          .

Congratulations, Heidi Mordhorst! You are the lucky winner of a copy of In the Middle of the Night: Poems From a Wide-Awake House! I know you and your second-graders will LOVE Laura’s new book.

There is a lot going on at my house these days. Our renovation project is winding down and we’re hosting an engagement party for my son and his fiancee next weekend. I know we all have busy lives, and kudos to all of you who juggle everything so well, but my attention has NOT been on my writing. I have managed to jot down a few ideas and make some notes, but not much more than that. I am looking forward to writing more in April, but have no particular project in mind for National Poetry Month.

Last week, it was my turn to post a prompt for Laura’s Food Poetry Project. Deciding what to favorite food to post was more difficult that I thought it would be. In the end, I went with the my idea of the delicious breakfast food ever, the pancake.

Writing about pancakes turned out to be just as difficult as choosing them. Sometimes when I’m stuck, I write acrostics to get ideas flowing. This week, after a bit of tinkering, I decided to stick with the form.

Pancake

Piping hot,

Awash in butter

Nine in a syrup-

Covered stack

Abounding with blueberries

Keeps hunger away and

Energizes me for the day!

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Be sure to visit Carol at Carol’s Corner for the Poetry Friday Roundup! Also, thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Poetry Friday & A Slice of Life 19: Soup

Catherine Flynn11 Comments

       

I’m a recipe follower. Before I got married, I told my mother I wasn’t moving out unless I got a Betty Crocker cookbook so I’d have the recipe for apple pie. After many years of trying new recipes, though, I learned to be a little more flexible about improvising when I cook. In fact, when it comes to chicken soup, I just start tossing ingredients into the pot. So when my poetry pal and critique group partner, Linda Mitchell, suggested writing about soup, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. This poem, which is basically how I make chicken soup these days, is still a very rough draft.

Soup

In a pot as blue as the sky,
a poem simmers.
Corn kernels
become a hundred tiny suns.
Carrots and potatoes
are the warm, rich earth
while parsley and rosemary
are fresh and green and fragrant.
Chunks of chicken add
more earth and sunshine.
Water,
bubbling up as if from a spring,
mixes and melds
with salt,
with pepper,
with love
sating my soul.

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Please be sure to visit Rebecca Herzog at Sloth Reads for the Poetry Friday Roundup. Thank you also to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19: A Writing Friendship

Catherine Flynn6 Comments

In a separate post, today I’m hosting a stop on the blog tour of In the Middle of the Night: Poems From a Wide-Awake House, by Laura Purdie Salas. (Leave a comment on that post, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for your very own copy!)

There is a direct link between being part of Laura’s blog tour and participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge. I “met” Laura when I responded to a tweet she sent out looking for teachers to write activity guides to a series of poetry books she was self-publishing. Designing activities to support favorite books is something I love to do. But I wasn’t confident I had the writing experience that Laura was looking for. As I worked to summon up the courage to write to Laura, I reread past blog posts and people’s comments, many from fellow Slicers. Indirectly, this community gave the push I needed to send the email. And, miracle of miracles, Laura put her trust in me! A few months later, Wacky, Wild, and Wonderful: 50 State Poems, part of Laura’s “30 Painless Classroom Poems” series, debuted with an activity guide written by yours truly.

Thanks to a supportive administration, I was able to attend NCTE later that year and meet Laura in person. Since then, we’ve seen each other at other conferences and connected online through Twitter and our blogs. This is exactly the kind of supportive friendship that I’ve been fortunate enough to develop with many other teachers and writers, all thanks to everyone, past and present, at Two Writing Teachers!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19: Lesson Learned

Catherine Flynn9 Comments

I don’t know if it’s because of the time change or because we had parent conferences at the beginning of the week, which altered our schedule or a combination of these and other events, but I feel like I haven’t gotten much accomplished this week. (Check my recent blog posts for confirmation. Oh wait, I haven’t written since Sunday. I rest my case.)

Last night I was planning a lesson on elaboration for a fifth grade class. I had my teaching point, the basic sequence of the lesson, and the mentor text I wanted to use. But I hadn’t written my model. I knew what I was going to write about, but it was after 10:30 and I was just too tired. Knowing I had time to write it in the morning, I headed for bed.

But I couldn’t get the lesson out of my head. Sentences from my unwritten model were swirling around in my head. At 2:00 I told myself to just follow my breath back to sleep. At 2:30 I got up for some water. At 3:00 I gave up and got up to write the model. Then I wrote a possible sequence for future lessons. Then I figured that I was on a roll and might as well write a Slice of Life.

So what’s the lesson? Next time, instead of losing at least four hours of sleep, I’ll make myself a cup of tea and power through another half-hour or so of work. I’ll have a much better chance of getting a good night’s sleep!

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Slice of Life 19: 13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Catherine Flynn15 Comments

13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie

When my poetry pal and fellow Slicer Molly Hogan posted a poetry prompt to write about “Cookies!!! Christmas cookies, sugar cookies or any sort of cookie,” I had to think for a bit. Like many of you, my family has many cookie traditions to choose from. In the end, I decided to stick with the cookie that’s been part of my memories forever, chocolate chip.

Once I settled on the kind of cookie, I had to come up with a form. I like to play with poems I’m working on in my head as I drive to work. This isn’t always a good idea because I have to actually pay attention to the other cars on the road! But, as sometimes happens, inspiration struck. Wallace Stevens “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” popped into my head. There must be at least 13 ways to look at a chocolate chip cookie. Or, even better, of eating a chocolate chip cookie. So here you have it, my “13 Ways to Eat a Chocolate Chip Cookie.”

Raw*

Sugar dissolves on your tongue
Sweetness fills your mouth
The chocolate chips still crunch.

Warm

Eleven minutes of heat transform
Lumps of dough into a golden brown,
Gooey confection.

With a glass of cold milk

Break the cookie in half
Dunk one end into the milk,
The longer it’s submerged, the softer will be.

At Nana’s House

There is always a tray of my favorite treat
Waiting on the table by the kitchen door.
Nana serves me two cookies on a red and white plate.

In small pieces

Break the cookie into small bits around the chip.
Nibble slowly. The sweetness of the softened
Morsel explodes like a ripe blueberry.

With Breakfast

Instead of pancakes
Both have eggs and flour
Sometimes people add chocolate chips to pancakes.

Crispy

Let them cool completely
They will crunch when you bite down
And leave crumbs at the corner of your mouth.

After school

When I get home, I’m so hungry
Lunch was hours ago
Cookies ease my hunger pangs.

In two bites

This way your entire mouth
Can savor the flavor
But they’re gone faster.

Chewy

If you put a slice of bread
In the tin
Your cookies will become soft and chewy.

After sledding

While my cheeks are still cold
Cookies and hot cocoa
Warm me up in no time.

Before bed

A single cookie
Helps me forget my cares
And sweetens my dreams.

Anytime

Because chocolate chip cookies
make everything better and
Are the most delicious cookie ever!

* I know all about salmonella concerns, but some habits die hard

Draft © Catherine Flynn, 2019

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

 

 

Poetry Friday: Celebrating International Women’s Day

Catherine Flynn43 Comments

                                     

“It is always better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~

Hello, and welcome to the Poetry Friday Roundup! (Visit Renée LaTulippe at No Water River to learn more about Poetry Friday.) 

Two months ago, when I was efficiently filling out my calendar with important dates, I realized I was hosting Poetry Friday on International Women’s Day I never pass up the opportunity for a theme, so I suggested that we share poems celebrating women.

I found this to be a bit more challenging that I anticipated. Right after I posted my idea, astronomer Nancy Grace Roman passed away. After reading about this amazing woman, I thought I might write a poem to honor her. But then I found a post by Maria Papova on BrainPickings about Ellen Harding Baker, an Iowa teacher who lived from 1847-1886. During her short life, she created a quilt depicting our solar system to use during her lessons. Her stunning creation is now part of the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

The National Museum of American History,
Gift of Patricia Hill McCloy and Kathryn Hill Meardon

This confluence of needlework and astronomy drew me to Ellen’s story and made me want to celebrate her life. This poem has proven quite a challenge to write, and I hope it does her justice.

An Ode to Ellen Harding Baker

Silenced by society’s
rules and regulations,
she adhered to its conventions,
fulfilling expectations.

Smiling on her sister,
Minerva granted her a gift:
The skill and creativity
to share her story visually.

Denied the power of the pen,
she embroidered woolen cloth.
Inspired by the spangled sky
and swirling stars above,
she stitched a blazing tapestry
detailing our corner of the galaxy.

Her masterpiece invited
wonderment and awe,
spreading knowledge and delight,
helping imaginations to take flight.

© Catherine Flynn, 2019

Today’s post is also doing double-duty as my Slice of Life. Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

And now for the Roundup! Please join today’s celebration of poetry by sharing your link.

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Slice of Life: What Did You Fall In Love With Today?

Catherine Flynn11 Comments

One of my favorite podcasts is Krista Tippett’s On Being. Recently, artist Maira Kalman was Krista’s guest. During their wide-ranging conversation, Kalman explained that “The subject of my work is the normal, daily things that people fall in love with.” Krista then asked “Have you fallen in love with something today?” Kalman had quite a list of items she’d fallen in love with that day. It was quite an uplifting, illuminating moment. It also got me thinking. What have I fallen in love with lately?

We have been renovating and adding on to our house for more than a year. It’s exhausting living in a construction zone, but I’m well aware of the first-world status of this problem and try not to complain. Now the end is in sight. So I went furniture shopping. I had an idea for what I wanted, but I also had an open mind. I found a lovely chair covered in soft, deep blue upholstery with a jacquard floral pattern. You sink into it. There is room to curl up. I fell in love with it the minute I sat down.

I also fell in love with a small flock of robins was darting and diving in and out of the trees that surround our school’s parking lot. They seemed to be dancing in pure joy.

A little later, I fell in love again with the color of the sky at dusk. The horizon was the deep pink of  flamingo feathers and gradually lightened to the shade of cotton candy. Who would not fall in love with such sights, which Natalie Babbitt calls “those commonplace marvels” which the world “spreads so carelessly before us everyday?”

What did you fall in love with today?

Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Kelsey, Melanie, and Lanny for creating this community and providing this space for teachers and others to share their stories every day in March and each Tuesday throughout the year. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.