Highlights Beginnings

           Leigh Anne Eck at A Day In the Life hosts today with a wealth of wonderful advice from Naomi Shihab Nye. Thanks for those words, Leigh Anne. It is a lovely welcome home from my Highlights poetry workshop. wanting to keep that poetry wonder I experienced all week.

           Yes, I'm home after a long day traveling and will share more from this fabulous week with new and old friends, and leaders Georgia Heard and Rebecca Kai Dotlich. The suitcase is unpacked, the books and journals piled on the table, laundry started, grocery list made. Now, time to write! 

                                                                        Win-Win

Inside or outside, paths invite me-

to amble in the forest’s wild

or ramble in the world of words.

Take the words and change them

into what they tell you is a poem.

The forest quiets my heart;

the poem makes my heart beat faster.

Linda Baie ©All rights reserved

Poetry Friday for Four Days!

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Catherine Flynn at Reading To The Core. I had the pleasure of spending lots of time with Catherine at the Highlights Foundation last week writing and learning “The Craft and Heart of Writing Poetry for Children” from Rebecca Kai Dotlich and Georgia Heard. It was a marvelous time that I've also written about in my two previous blog posts! 

I'm thrilled and honored to move to the Cybil's Poetry Judges' Round One this year, will love working with Joy Acey, Carol Wilcox, Sylvia Vardell, Jone MacCulloch, Courtney Garrison and Tricia Stohr-Hunt. Don't forget, nominations begin on October 1st!

It was terrific to spend time with other Poetry Friday bloggers, too, like Robyn Hood Black, Buffy Silverman, Linda Kulp Trout, and Charles Waters. 

In these days, we filled up with poetry. We met in smaller groups to share our own original poetry and receive critiques. This made me wish to have this group for every poem. The insights and ideas offer were very appreciated. "Revision" means to "re-see", and this time that "second sight" showed me new ways to look and keep looking for a better draft.  

Treasured Times

       I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today. It's always a pleasure to read what everyone writes about their lives.

         The last time I posted was about point of view, and I think I may always be considering it, trying to learn from others' opinions, too. This touches growth mindset too, doesn't it?

So, I had the extreme pleasure of joining Georgia Heard, Rebecca Kai Dotlich and an amazing group of poets at the Highlights Foundation retreat poetry workshop last week, "The Craft and Art of Writing Poetry for Children". And again, the time opened my mind to some new ideas, and affirmed old ones. Listening, "hearing" others' POVs excited and taught me. 

            Some of the group I had written with before at an earlier retreat, some are teacher/bloggers I've met at NCTE. Some are poetry Friday bloggers I've written with for a long time and was thrilled to meet and know better. And those new to me, so glad to make good connections, beginning friendships! 

A Celebration To Love

  Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover Play Build.  and linking with others who share their celebrations, too. I am grateful to Ruth for helping us celebrate together!  

from Madeleine L'Engle
       "Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving."

       I spent this past week until Thursday at the Highlights Barn for The Craft and Heart of Writing Poetry for Children workshop with Georgia Heard, Rebecca Kai Dotlich and a group of old friends and also new ones. That old song kept flying through my mind about keeping old friends and making new ones-one silver and the other gold. How in four days such special connections are made is a wonder to me. I wrote with some of the group three years ago and was thrilled to be with them again. I've met some at teacher conventions, but most I know through their blogging, thus, their stories! Today I celebrate stories, and those willing to share them during this oh, so brief, time. They shared them when they shared their poems for response, how the poems came to "be" in their lives, and what they meant to them. They shared at meals, on the paths as we walked and talked, then talked some more, telling about our lives, where and when and how and why.  I heard highs and lows from family and work and struggles still happening, as well as those from the past. Stories make who we are, and I was honored to hear them. 

Celebrating Getting Away

            Thanks to Ruth Ayres for creating a place to celebrate the little and the big times in our lives.  If you are visiting, check HERE for the links. 

Don't forget to tweet at #CelebrateLu

          Michelle H. Barnes, at Today's Little Ditty sometimes asks for five words in response to something. Last spring, the question was what does poetry mean to you. I replied with

                                          A poet’s words linger longer…

the cabins where I'll stay

          Poetry does mean much to me, and today I'm celebrating taking the next week off, from work, mostly from online things (I'll have my computer.) in order to go to a poetry workshop with David L. Harrison, poet extraordinaire, website here, at the Highlights Foundation retreat near Honesdale, Pennsylvania. It's my second time, and I plan to write and write and enjoy the beautiful autumn that I know is waiting. I leave Sunday and am so, so excited. I'm celebrating that I am able to go, that my school supports this, and that I have the beautiful chance to work with David and the rest of the writers who will be there, from all over the US and Canada.

       More to come next time! It was a good week all the way through, ending with Ingrid coming home with me after school on Friday, ever a joy.

        I hope you all have a terrific week next week!