Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
If you don’t believe a story
Can stay with you in the background
Like a picturesque tree you pose before
For all of your life, witness this:
I loved the baking powder can
That Billy saved his money in to buy
Those two redbone coonhounds.
The Clabber Girl with her shy smile
And plate of biscuits sits in my cabinet
And empty on the shelf beside the sink
Where I put twisty ties and pennies. Continue reading “Red Ferns and Red Hounds”
When I first started having my high school students participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day, they thought I was nuts. Carry a poem around in my pocket for a day? What? Take it home and read it to people? What? Have them sign the back of the poem? What? Continue reading “It’s In Your Pocket!”
I am a thing-finder. I am a word-finder. I am a paper-finder. I cannot walk past something handwritten on a scrap of paper that is lying on the sidewalk or in the ditch or on the seat on the bus. I can’t remember not being a thing-finder. In things, I find poetry. Continue reading “Poetry-Finder”
When I was teaching high school English, I spent the month of April on poetry. Yes, the state was going berserk doing tests, TESTS, T E S T S but in between all that nonsense, it was the perfect time for poetry. (And it’s National Poetry Month, after all). If you have made a space for poetry in your classroom, meaning that your students know it is okay to experiment with words, to break rules, to have fun with the language, then give them a break with something like this: Continue reading “Object Transformation”
NOTE: The following was written and given to me after our festival. If you attended and would also like to make a comment, please reply in the Comments below.
My favorite part of the ROMP Poetry Festival was the letters that had the names of different authors on the envelope. I picked out James Wright and the poem inside was called “Beginning.” I really loved this poem instantly and found myself thinking that I needed to find a book of poems by James Wright. Continue reading “Poetry Post Office”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 