First off, thank you ever so much to my friends Shannon Lowry and Kathie Sever at their collaborative craft blog — Back and Forth Project.

Today, their Friend Friday post features our Crown Sonnet project!

You can find a re-telling of our story right up top, and then stay to explore the back posts. Back and Forth is a really exciting concept, borne of a children’s book project but exploded open into discussions of creativity and connecting with one another via art.

Thanks, gals, for including us!

Second, I just have to try to describe to you what it was like seeing my 3rd grader and her buddies performing scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night yesterday. Let’s start with the presumption that there’s no way I can do it justice. 
I’m serious, folks. 

Here’s the deal.

At our school, the 3rd and 4th graders are lucky enough to study Shakespeare through performance, thanks to an amazing outreach program. (They’ve recently been working on Comedy of Errors and even I have some of Egeon’s lines memorized.)

The man who runs the program happens to be a dad at our school, so this year he developed an afterschool master class for those kids who just couldn’t get enough of fair William. Count my tall one among those. 

At first it was hard. Really hard.
“I love acting, but not memorizing,” my girl said.
The language was, well, rather foreign. 

But then, in spite of themselves, they started absorbing it. The whole lot of ’em.
And the results were stunning. 

As we gathered in the library yesterday afternoon, the kids donned their wigs and vests and velvet caps.
And then, began.

They knew all of their lines.
All. Of. Them.

And the ones that were supposed to be funny?
They were hilarious!

The ones that were meant to be sarcastic?
They were biting!

The ones that were written to be beautiful?
They were staggering!

I didn’t look to see but I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who cried.

There was something so moving about our 9- & 10- & 11-year-olds holding this poetry in their mouths and in their bodies.
Actually, more than just hold. 
They held and truly felt. 
They embodied.

Today, I’m awash in gratitude for the UT Shakespeare at Winedale program, and their teacher — the beloved Mr. S. And for our school librarian and, oh heck, William Shakespeare for starting the whole darn thing…

So here, for your reading pleasure, is one of my daughter’s bits as Viola from Twelfth Night. 
Read it aloud, just for kicks:

Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,–I pray you,  
tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I
would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to
the least sinister usage.

I’ve been thinking lately about the mysterious marriage of craft and intuition. 
Both for myself and for my students.

I think writing without intuition lacks heart, but writing without craft lacks an open door for the reader — no matter how magically intuitive the idea is. You need both, the way a firefighter needs a hose and a heat-proof suit. The problem is, the one that can be taught and practiced doesn’t seem to compel the budding writer as much as the other. 

Most folks would love to be visited by the muse — dressed in diaphanous gowns — and left with a story that just unwound itself on the page. Who wouldn’t? 

I have to say that the books I’ve sold have all been born of very gut-level, semiconscious tugs that took hold of me like freight trains in a melodrama. 

But. 

It was the next many weeks — spent taking words out, putting them back, cutting here, tightening there, reading aloud, reading aloud, reading aloud — that really took those tugs and turned them into books. 

And I wore leggings and old t-shirts. Not diaphanous gowns.

Still, I have a hunch that it’s the exhilarating taste of those tugs — like some sort of sublime confection — that keeps us nose to the grindstone, craft-wise. It’s not really that commas are that much fun (although somedays I cannot stop with the tweaking) but that we think we may be on the verge of true passion, any day, at any moment. That can sustain a person for a good long while. 

I know, because I’ve been in deadline and revision mode lately and it’s been kind of like cleaning the bathtub. 
Hard, repetitive work.
The occasional glint of futility.
Unappreciated.

But I kind of liked it anyway. 
Because maybe I’m on the verge. 
Right?

Meanwhile, I have students — some of whom say they’ve been waiting forever. (It really feels that way sometimes…)
Or that they’ve been visited for years, but as soon as they were asked  to write for a class, on deadline, it all dried up.
Or that their ideas can’t find their way to paper.

Tomorrow night is our last class and I want them to leave feeling inspired.
With the energy to carry on.

I want just a little bit of sweet confection to offer them….

Remember a few years back when the idea people came up with the Do Not Call Registry?

Remember the power and comfort in knowing that, once you said, “Please put me on your Do Not Call List,” they were never, ever supposed to call you again? 

Remember the peace and quiet?

And then it turned out that it didn’t apply to Clean Water Action or the Police Officers fund or Hillary or Barack.
Not that I’ve got anything against of those folk, but I’ve gotta say — a dinnertime call from any of them annoys me as much as one from the Home Shopping Network would. 

I shouldn’t complain. 

Our primary is long over, and I know it’s ya’ll in Indiana and North Carolina who have had to turn your ringers off recently. 
But honestly, these calls do not inspire love and loyalty in me. 
I understand the need to raise consciousness and money, and I know that marketing is a tricky balancing act — saturate but don’t irritate. 
Which is, apparently, easier said than done.

Last night I got a call at 8:05 from a city council campaign office.
8:05.
Hello?? Bathtime? Bedtime? Book time?
“Can our candidate count on your support?” the woman on the other end of the line asked me.
“No,” I said. “Nobody who calls me at 8:05 in the evening can count on my support.”

Which, granted, is a little sour. But can’t they reach out without reaching in?

This weekend, one of my multitudinous cousins was in town.
Technically, he’s my dad’s cousin but in my family we tend not to discern between 1st, 2nd or 3rd, 
once or twice removed.
There are too many of us and we all like each other too much for it to matter. 

He was here for a big Masters swimming event at UT, and we went to cheer him on.
Our daughters came armed with handmade signs and lots of spirit.
Tall one took one whiff of the air and uttered in ecstasy, “I love the smell of pool…”

One of the events Dan was swimming was a 500 meter freestyle. 
That’s 20 lengths, folks. At race pace. It makes you gasp for air just thinking about it.
So, needless to say, a guy’s got enough to do just pulling himself down the pool and back again without drowning.
Keeping track of mileage is too much to ask.

Which is where I came in. 
I got to be his official ‘lap counter’.
Standing at one end of the pool, I was given a long paddle with numbers at the bottom. I dipped it in each time he came my way so that he’d know how far he’d come and how much further he’d have to go. In between, he’d pound two more lengths at mock speed while I scurried to change the numbers on the paddle. I may not be going to Beijing this summer, but I got my own little smell of victory right then, I assure you.

But here’s the thing that really got to me.
Even more than my own moment in the sun, or Dan’s goal-shattering swim.
All these zillions of ordinary folks, swimming their hearts out, for fun.
For fun. 

I mean, nobody requires that they take their vacation days in Texas at a swim meet or that they let their hair turn slightly green in the chlorine or that they wake up everyday at 5am to swim laps. They do it on their own, for health and sanity and competition and comraderie and passion and, well, for fun. 

Some hold world records, others are cancer survivors. 
Some are fast, others are slow. 
Some are 26, others are 86. Seriously. 
And there they all are, in their Speedos and goggles, with their Gatorade and Gu, stickin’ to it and having fun.

I cannot be in the presence of that sort of people — whether they’re swimming or singing or writing or campaigning or dancing or teaching — without being brought to my knees. In admiration. And gratitude. For the entertainment and the inspiration. I may be a card-carrying sap, but I came home with a whole new oomph for the stuff that makes life better than good…

What’re you up to?

Lately, my tall one has been waking nightly, with growing pains and hunger.
Her jeans all barely skim her ankles and she’d eat two lunches if I’d pack them.

Meanwhile, here I sit with a crick in my neck and a slight headache.
I love my morning run but sometimes feel as if I’ll need a nap when I finish.

We are two bodies in a world full of bodies — brand new and aging, strong and tired, open and closed.

We are two bodies capable of, if you can believe it, breath. 
And when it comes right down to it, what else is there?

I’ve found a body poem by an old grad school friend of mine, the imaginative and luminescent Marlys West. 

Read. Hear. Sit. Breathe.
With your singular body on this singular Friday.

Namaste….

Here Is the Church

They had never spoken
to me before, save one, once, when a basketball jammed
its knuckle and for three days straight that finger

shouted and wept,
wept and shouted,
fat and purple, full of anger. This night

was different. I heard a tiny song from
deep inside the neat, white bones, unlike any melody I knew
and not unpleasant. 

Yesterday I sat in on a roundtable designed to get at the secrets behind excellent teaching.

The talk originated with a really thoughtful dean, who does things like this. 

(Peer reviews, retreats, roundtables.) 

Imagine — asking teachers what makes for excellent teaching.
I love it when notions are totally sensible and radical at the same time.

So here’s what struck me: 

How many smart, articulate, imaginative and totally devoted teachers there are — working everyday to make learning accessible, engaging, relevant and, ultimately, truly possible. 

It’s enough to make me want to cry. Or cheer. 
And it’s for sure enough to make me want to do an ever-more impassioned job myself.

I came home with a long list of ways my colleagues bring learning to life in their classrooms — 
using games and patience and examples and compassion. 

We talked about kids just out of high school, new immigrants, pregnant moms, and students overwhelmed by everyday roadblocks. And story after story was recounted of actually reaching these students. Of accomplishment. Empowerment. Humour. Joy.

And this was one intimate little group at one little community college.

Makes a gal kind of hopeful, y’know what I mean? 

For those of you who worried that I’d fallen ill or gone into the witness protection program, rest easy.

I’ve just been so flippin’ busy that blogging has had to take a back seat. 
(Well, okay, I put it in the trunk. Or on the roof rack. Sorry. Something had to give.)

But I couldn’t resist stopping by briefly to relay a school visit snippet.

(And I have faith that someday soon I’ll have a half-hour for a proper update, and twelve hours to read all of yours…)

Monday I visited with a bunch of first graders who were just beaming with enthusiasm, the whole lot of them.
Plus, they all seemed to be missing their two front teeth, which is pretty much my favorite look in the whole entire world.
I was smitten.

But, lest I get too cocky and comfortable in my authorial hat (or pocket vest, as the case may be), Little Guy stepped in:

Me: And your heart is a pocket full of love, sweet love. 
My heart is a pocket full of love.

Little Guy: Ma’am? That’s not technically right. 
A heart is a pocket full of blood. And blood filters. 

Me: Um, uh, right. Technically. 

Little Guy: (Silent. Satisfied.)

So. So much for metaphors. 
But, y’know, I often talk to my students about how our work has to ring true — to be true — even if it isn’t the least bit factual. 
This heart business didn’t ring true for Little Guy? Good for him for speaking up.
Truly.

Recently, one of my mama friends told me about a conversation she’d had with her daughter. 
They’d discussed why we’re all attracted to different people and, in particular, what characteristics they truly treasured about their individual best buds.

I was inspired.

So, yesterday evening, my small one and I walked the dog and chatted.

Isn’t it funny, I said, how in this whole wide world full of people we all, magically, find these certain folk to be our friends?

Yep, she said, I’ve got a lot of friends. And it went from there. 

I discovered that she really likes people who are kind and funny. 
Bottom line. 
Not actually all that different from my bottom line.
I mean, if you can’t have a laugh now and again, life’s going to be a long slog.

And speaking of funny.
Here’s my favorite moment from our conversation:

Well, I think my favorite thing about C. is how nice she is.

Wow, I said.

Yeah, she said. Especially when the hermit crab wasn’t really killed.

Right, I said. That is really nice, I said. 

(Hard to know how else to respond to all that.)

So today, in honor of all the quirky and peculiar little intimacies and reasons we have for pairing up with who we do, here’s a little ditty by Richard Brautigan. Happy Friday, friends…

If I were to live my life 

in catfish forms

in scaffolds of skin and whiskers 

at the bottom of a pond 

and you were to come by 

   one evening

when the moon was shining 

down into my dark home 

Read the rest here…

Yesterday I did the first of a two-day writing workshop with a group of local 5th graders. 

The topic was poetry, and my take on it was this:

Poetry’s hard to pin down.

Is it short? 
Yes.
I read from some books I’d brought and the kids had all written haiku before. 
So, yes, we had evidence: poetry is short.
Always?
Um. No. 
We talked about epic poetry. And I read to them that old ditty about James James Morrison Morrison. 
(They could not believe, by the way, that someone — an ordinary guy — had invented Winnie the Pooh.)
Anyway. 
The conclusion? Poetry is sometimes short and sometimes long.

Does it rhyme? 
Yes — and we read some very funny Mary Ann Hoberman to prove it.
But, I mean, does it always rhyme.
Oh. No. I guess not.
This dreamy free verse doesn’t. 
OK. 
So poetry’s sometimes rhymed and sometimes unrhymed.

And what’s it about?
Nature? Yep.
Love? Check.
Life, called out one student.
Stuff, called out another.
Death, said a third.
And how about this? I asked, as I turned to Thumbs by Shel Silverstein.
Right. 
Thumb sucking.
Poetry can be about anything.

Sheesh.

This is what scares people about poetry. 
It’s hard to pin down.
If you don’t know what it is, how can you read or write it with any confidence?

But, I suggested, what if we look at that as part of the adventure?
What if we like breaking rules?
What if use incomplete sentences and make up words?
What if we lie?

Everyone perked up a little at this point. 
What if we lie??!!

And so we did. *
Here’s the first effort, a collaborative poem full of untruths.
I think it’s pretty swell.

And That’s the Truth

The sky is green.
I don’t like to gamble,
Miguel hates money
and I hate chocolate.

People don’t sing
and cats bark.
We don’t go
to the Austin Discovery School 
and the world is safe
right now.

* Kenneth Koch talks about lies in his book Wishes, Lies and Dreams. That book and his Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? really inspire me, as a writer and a teacher. 

I wish I could tell you this was a joke, but alas…

My Beautiful Mommy — a picture book about plastic surgery due out on (I am not pulling your leg here) Mother’s Day.

Seriously, you guys…