Truth. I spent the day with the Sealey, Wooley, Johnson needing a grading space as their house was shown. At night, we have dinner with Will & Jess, with news I was asked to officiate a 2nd wedding...Justine and Juliette in May, and Will & Jess in August. And of course, this was this poem (while also welcoming Ger back to the U.S. and talking with my cousin about a potential gathering next week). Sometimes, yes...the light is just right.
Okay, Sunday. Today you REALLY must grade.
It's one of my favorite stories to tell, but I've never told it poetically, so I tried. Here's to that class...2004? 2005? It all blurs at this point but the memory of kids and a younger Crandall stays with me.
Here's to the weekend and fish dinners.
It was day four of VerseLove on EthicalELA.com and the brilliant prompt from Jennifer Guyor Hewitt was to take on an alphabet letter and bring it to its poetic fruition. I chose to be Crandall, and to impishly go after a poem without the letter B. I could spend the rest of my life spending time on such poetics and language play. I love April because it distracts me from the insanity of April. As stressed as I get I think, "Oh, Crandall, but you have a poetic challenge to accomplish."
Do I have priorities or do I have priorities?
It was a great place-prompt, and I was drawn to being 19, being on a voyage with 20+ students on an exchanged program in London, visiting the sea side for an evening and, well, it was a phenomenal evening of youth being youth, in a magical place during a time that changed my life forever. The most magical months of my life that would never allow me to be the same ever again: friends, scholarly mentors, travel, and words....so many words.
Another rainy, murky day in the northeast, but an unexpected surprise. My buddy, Dave, was childless and wifeless for the evening so I broke fast with him at Chitunga's ol' stomping ground where he bar-backed for extra money. We were only two of the few at the bar and The Windmill never fails. Another day of teaching and writing and prepping (my house looks like an Amazon warehouse of items for teachers, but since the CWP office was removed from Donnarumma, I needed a place to store items for K-12 schools. It's the love I choose to do, but wish I got support for the location where I work. Here's to April, though.
My poem for the day.
The directions for word play with the Magic Box are below;
The dentist made a fool of me again yesterday to welcome me to April, but I also got the first of 30 poems completed through the EthicalELA's #VerseLove. There's always time to join and participate. The first prompt came from Kim Johnson and she asked us to #OurNames. Sure. That is a wonderful first-day task.
It wouldn't be a first post without a Karal sighting. Here's to the poets, the teachers, Sarah Donovan and the EthicalELA team for all their hard work in making this happen once again. It shall be a poetic month once again!
Obviously, the kids were the hits of the day. Their play is hilarious and they make everything that much more fun.
It's also a great day to spend with Karal's veterinarian. We love Stephanie.
In the end, however, it was the cherubs and their bunny rabbits and baskets of toys that took the spotlight (and some sort of baked cheese for the crackers...too good for words).
But now it is April Fool's Day and I'm a fool, because I have a dental cleaning followed by massive amounts of work to prepare the week, the remaining days of the semester, and SUMMER! Looks like we'll be going forward full speed once again.
And it looks like sun today. Rain the rest of the week, and my lawn is Turing into a forest. I just don't want to start the mowing quite yet. Ah, but I am Butch's son. Son of a Butch. Hope the mower still works.
Also, it's April and that means #VerseLove starting tomorrow. I can't wait.
