Monday Poetry Stretch: Acrostic

A Labor Day Acrostic

It seems to me there is less respect today than at anytime in my life for the labor of common folk. The air of entitlement among some folk only a generation or two removed from "linthead" and "clodbuster" ancestors is downright shocking. People who would still be tied to farm or mill had there been no union movement or New Deal or GI Bill are adamantly anti-union, anti-Democratic, anti-government programs period. There is very little awareness or appreciation for the incredible number of hands responsible for each little luxury and convenience we partially consume and largely consign to metastasizing landfills. There is great disdain for those whose labor is necessary to our wasteful lifestyles. And how dare our tax dollars be used to provide health insurance to common laborers who contribute less than us to the tax coffers.

On Labor Day this year I had the rare privilege of listening as several of my older relatives discussed the work their parents did in the cotton mills of Georgia and South Carolina. I am very proud of those folks. They sacrificed much to give their children better lives.

One interesting story was about how, when the small Methodist Church (the graveyard of which holds my grandparents) in Porterdale was used for a union organizing meeting it was burned down.

On the 1900 census of Spaulding County Georgia you will find my 10 year old Uncle Ervin listed as "elevator boy" and my fifteen year old grandmother as "mill worker". Think about that my young friends as you clip on your iPods and head to the gym to workout in your 75 dollar Nikes.

I interviewed Uncle Ervin when he was in his nineties back about 1981. He mentioned visiting Ashland, Alabama (from Griffin, Georgia) in his youth. I asked him how he got there. I thought perhaps he took a horse or wagon or maybe a train. No. "I got there the same way I got anywhere else," he said, "I walked."

I'm sure it was good exercise. I do not think he wore Nikes.

So here's my response to Tricia's Monday Poetry Stretch, an acrostic for Labor Day.

Little Uncle Irvin, ten-years-old,
A new employee, runs the mill's
Big elevator, up and down, hour after hour --
Our grandmother, fifteen and fatherless, an old hand upstairs --
Raising the bosses and the bossed,

Day after 1900 day,
And Will, and Fanny, and Molly, and Cora,
Year after non-union year.

by Terrell Shaw

Back online!

I am just off the phone after several hours with some very patient troubleshooters in North Carolina (BellSouth) and India (Linksys). And I am reconnected to the internet! It has been a frustrating two or three days.

If you have a Mac DO NOT buy a Linksys router. They are not just ignorant of Macs, they seem to me antagonistic toward Macs. Why is that? Despite their silly multiple warnings that they DO NOT support Macs, in the end connecting the Macs was a piece of cake. It was the usual PC folderol that took forever. And the third Linksys fellow, though it was difficult to understand his lovely Indian singsong accent, was very patient, knowledgeable, and helpful.

I am sorry to be so late with the September edition of Learning in the Great Outdoors. It may not be up till Saturday: bed beckons me now and - this IS September -- there's football tomorrow night.

PTSW : Back to School

The first day of school.

It is actually one of my favorite days of the year. Such promise. All the students are wonderful possibilities. Each is full full of promise. And I believe the promise to my toes.

Even though my first midterm grades go out this week, here are some good beginning the year poems. The first soothes the conscience of this disorganized, messy, teacher.

Miss Lee and Mrs. Fuller

Miss Lee’s rows are straight
and her cabinets are dusted.
Her blotter is fresh
and her shades are adjusted.
She always has staples
and Elmer’s and tissues.
She never misplaces
a pass that she issues.

Mrs. Fuller does.

Miss Lee’s books have covers;
she hasn’t lost any.
Her milk money forms
come out right to the penny.
Her class in assemblies
is quite in control.
She never miscounts
or forgets to take roll.

Mrs. Fuller does.

Miss Lee has a gradebook that’s neat,
not a smear.
Her lesson plan book
is complete for the year.
Her duties for playground
or lunch never tire her.
She never has principals
trying to fire her.

Mrs. Fuller does.

Miss Lee sees no value
in things that don’t fit.
Her warmest remarks
run to “Quiet” and “Sit.”
She never sparks passion,
excitement or dreams-
She never sees minds that are
bursting their seams.

Mrs. Fuller does.

by Cheryl Miller Thurston

Now

Close the barbecue.
Close the sun.
Close the home-run games we won.
Close the picnic.
Close the pool.
Close the summer.
Open school.

by Prince Redcloud

Read To Me

Read to me riddles and read to me rhymes,
Read to me stories of magical times.
Read to me tales about castles and kings.
Read to me stories of fabulous things.
Read to me pirates and read to me knights,
Read to me dragons and dragon-book fights.
Read to me spaceships and cowboys and then,
When you are finished -- please read them again.

By Jane Yolen

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The series of posts, A Poem to Start the Week, is my little anthology of poetry, many of which I have used with my students in elementary schools during 27 years of teaching.



Previous Poems to Start the Week:
The Inchcape Rock • Ogden Nash • Trash
Hearts, Like Doors • Casey at the Bat • Always a Rose • Home at Last
Bag of Tools • Carpe Diem • Poems About Poetry • Man's Best Friend
Spelling is Tough Stough! • Blue Marble • Tacks, Splinters, Apples and Stars
Oh, Captain, My Captain! • Metaphor • Introducion to Poetry
Loveliest of Trees • Flax-Golden Tales • The Dinosaurs Are Not All Dead
Owl Pellets • Mummy Slept Late • Just My Size
The Kindest Things I Know • Miles to Go • Love that Brother
Oh, Frabjous Day!

Other Posts about Children's Literature:

The Lion's Paw top kid's OOP book!
Harry
Aslan is Dead!
Multiplying People, Rice, and Readers

A Teacher's Life

You can read some of my own efforts at poetry here.
And then there's Alien Invasion.

A weblog dedicated to Poetry for Children.
Watch Sonja Cole's reviews of children's books at Bookwink.com.
The PBS series Favorite Poem Project

Crazy as a Bessie Bug

Joan found my unkind insult of Joseph Smith (below) cute. She hadn't heard "bessie bug" in a while.

I am one who is spurred to action as easily as a disturbed bessie bug. Just mention a bit of trivia or an unusual term to me and, instead of clicking my wings against my belly audibly like a member of the Family Passalidae, I reflexively google whatever bit has teased my brain. So, for the curious visitors to the limb, here is a photo of a bessie bug - click it to see more:

Sunday Concert: Come Thou Fount...

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
from A Thanksgiving of American Hymns
Brigham Young University Combined Choirs and Orchestra
Although Joseph Smith was crazy as a bessie bug his followers can make music. Sheila and I bought the CD and video of this wonderful concert years ago. It played on public TV year after year. I love all of the arrangements. We especially enjoy this one and "How Can I Keep From Singing".

Tom Swifties

Russ Ringsak - the eloquent writer and astute observer who also drives the big truck back and forth across the country for Garrison Keillor and The Prairie Home Companion -- reintroduced me to Tom Swifties. What fun. Had you heard of them?

Examples from A to Z:

"I'm wearing a ribbon round my arm," said Tom with abandon.

"I can't eat any more lemon peel," said Tom zestfully.

Here is a link to a Tom Swifty website.
Here are Russ's two essays that mention Swities: One Two.
That second link has Russ's prize winner, and perhaps my favorite as well:

"Here comes the prisoner down the stairs now," Tom said, condescendingly.

Wint Barton: Take 2

Mr. Barton came back to my school on Tuesday to talk to the class he missed last Friday. (Check that out here.) Once again he seemed to genuinely enjoy himself as did the students and our illustrious principal, who sat in this this time around.

Suzanne, Wint's daughter - a retired fourth-grade teacher herself - called me and we talked for about 30 minutes last weekend. She called to invite Sheila and me to Wint's 95th birthday celebration on the ninth. But she talked at length about how much her father had enjoyed the visit to our school. In the process she brought up his ability to recite.

For example, he can still recite the final lines of the famous poem, "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

by William Cullen Bryant

He also can, and often does, recite all the counties of Georgia in alphabetical order. This last is no mean feat. Georgia has 159 of them. Only Texas has more.

So for this lesson I brought up Georgia's 159 counties. I had had to learn them myself in eighth grade, but I have long since lost the skill of reciting them.

"Well, let me tell you how that came about," said Mr. Barton, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, ...

There was a fella that traveled around with a little elephant, and he came to our school at Everett Springs. He saw me studying that list of counties. I was studying hard, and having a rough time remembering them. He said, "Now you know about elephants, don't you? They never forget anything. So come here and lay your hand on this elephants back, and see if you can say 'em."
Well, I walked up there and laid my hand on that little elephant and named every last county in Georgia in alphabetical order, and I still remember them to this day!

Then he raised his hands and started ticking them off... "Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Baker..."
The kids gave him a rousing round of applause and he beamed.

After school, as we headed away from the school, under the sudden inspiration of a gorgeous afternoon, I asked if he'd like to drive on up to Everett Springs and show me the homeplace where he spent his first 25 years. He was game so off we went.

He is a great tour guide despite his poor eyesight. All along the way he mentioned which farm had been whose in the old days and who has bought it. Where the road washed out and his cousin's car ended up. And finally the wooded hillside where Barton school had been -- there is no other clue to its ever having been there.

We pulled into the driveway of his brothrer's widow and had a nice 15 minute visit with her, before pulling off the road next door to the home he grew up in, and where another brother lived into his nineties.

Walking around the place he pointed out his usual path to the old school.

I watched a long water snake tumble off a little plank driveway bridge into a beaver pond. Several peacocks shuffled around then flew to the rusted metal roof of a vine covered shed. A little green heron, with an injured wing fluttered about the margin of the pond.

He pointed out the bottles his brother had collected still stacked in the back windows, and the incongruous satellite dish attached to the side of the house.