Poetry Friday - Do You Call Reading Poems Conversations?

            Thanks to Carol Labuzzetta who is hosting this Poetry Friday, at her blog, here.  It's The Apples in My Orchard where today Carol shares some great exercises with her middle-school students, "I am" poems. And one of them is by Billy Collins! 

In these days filled with turmoil, poetry helps me take a break and this time, have a nice talk with Billy Collins. Wishing you all some of these breaks, too.  

               Then, if you are able, find a way to help somewhere!

           I love having a conversation with Billy Collins. I've spent weeks (months?) talking with him. This latest book came out nearly a year ago and I don't remember when I bought it, or when I started reading. Here are a few parts that I enjoyed. Although I can't share all of a poem, I hope you find the book and love your own talks with Billy.

He begins with "The Function of Poetry" where after a morning full of errands (as we have on some days), he looks out his kitchen window and writes "I realized/that the function of poetry is to remind me/ that there is much more to life/ than what I am usually doing/when I'm not reading or writing poetry."

In "And It's Raining Outside, Which Always Adds", he writes of a transistor radio he bought in a junk shop "run by a man as tall as a grandfather clock".

And in "The Emperor of Ice Cubes", he speaks of throwing an ice cube at some sandpipers on a Florida beach. One, the first to get to it, rebuffs the others when Billy muses: "Imagine–a bird missing the cold/while pecking at an ice cube/as it melted in the Florida sand."

Of course, there are more marvelous words and new looks at things from Billy Collins.  These are tiny crumbs, whispers really, from my own favorites. 

The title poem, "Whale Day" begins "Today I was awakened by strong coffee/and the awareness that the earth is busy with whales/even though we can't see any."

         If you can't find this book, HERE is the Billy Collins page at the Poetry Foundation, about him and with lots of poems ready to read and love.

       

Poetry Friday - Windows

        It's Poetry Friday, first week of February, here with Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids. She has written a love poem I'm sure will be loved! Thanks, Laura!

          I'm hosting next week on Valentine's Day, sweetest day of the year! Be sure you prepare some sugary love!

          I've been reading a book by Billy Collins that came into the bookstore, one I didn't know titled The Trouble with Poetry and other poems. In one poem, "Monday" he begins with 
                 "The birds are in their trees,
                   the toast is in the toaster,
                   and the poets are at their windows."

          Continuing, Billy Collins speaks of others at their work, like "The clerks are at their desks,/the miners are down in their mines,/and the poets are looking out their windows." You can imagine some of the rest, and you can listen to Billy reading it here! 

           Instead of writing anew, I started reading through some of the poems I've written and realize, in some, though not all, I was looking out my window. Here's a new one, followed by some previously written, "out my window"!

my pine
carries winter's burden-
glad to be limber -
 

SOLC17 3/31 And Poetry Friday - Happy Birthday to Billy Collins

Yes, we're moving into the month of March, with a new SOLC challenge and it's already number three and time for the weekend! Go to the Two Writing Teachers website to find all who link there!

I also post in the PoetryFriday group. This time I've been asked by Heidi Mordhurst at My Juicy Little Universe to a celebration party for the poet Billy Collins. His 76th birthday is March 22nd, and some of us are adding to that special event by posting a favorite poem by Billy Collins. Thanks for hosting this celebration, Heidi!

        When I taught, among some classic poets, and some new poets popular with early adolescents, my go-to poet to share with my students was Billy Collins' poems and the poetry site he began when he served as Poet Laureate of the United States. If you don't know it, it's titled Poetry 180 and you can access it here. He began it to share poems he felt were accessible to high school students, but most are also good to share with middle school aged students as well. And new poems are added often. They speak of real life, connect to teens, show current problems in our world,  make kids (and teachers) laugh. Billy Collins' poems don't always speak about just teen life, but they do speak of life and the way one observes things. I always thought it showed my students that they can write poetry in their unique voices about their lives without worrying if it really is a poem. Reading and considering Billy Collins' words helps that worry. Yes, we did work with more exacting forms and learned poetic devices. But time and again when we shared favorite lines and/or poems, Billy's were shared often. Here is one of my favorites of his. You won't be surprised that's it's about books and libraries. 

It is titled "Books" from Sailing Around The Room
           and begins:

From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus
I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.

I picture a figure in the act of reading,
shoes on a desk, head tilted into the wind of a book,

       Find the rest here! And enjoy while you're singing "Happy Birthday!"

Poetry Friday - Special Universe

        It really was a juicy little universe this week with the super-blood-moon-total-lunar-eclipse event, and a perfect punctuation mark at the end for Poetry Friday is Heidi Mordhorst, our host, whose blog name IS My Juicy Little Universe. This time she's also sharing something called #diversiverse. Be sure to check it out. Thanks, Heidi!

Not the best photo, but it is MINE, because this is where
I watched the supermoon and the eclipse, a nearby park!

         Over a week ago, Writer's Almanac shared a poem by Billy Collins. I don't know when he wrote it, but it made watching the eclipse last Sunday even better. I know we have many things to be grateful for, including that supermoon, and so does Billy Collins. I'm sharing it today in case you missed it.

 As If To Demonstrate an Eclipse   ~   Billy Collins

I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.

       the rest can be found here.