Poem in Your Pocket Day and Other News

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day!  IMHO, my school did a poor to quite poor job promoting this event this year, but at my urging, most of my students did have a poem in their pocket.  I, too, had a poem in my pocket.  This year I chose Billy Collin's The Trouble with Poetry.

The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night--
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky--

the trouble with poetry is

that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?

unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing else to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy

and I rise like a feather in the wind
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,

to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,

I thought to myself

as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti--
to be perfectly honest for a moment--

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

The poems is delightful, and it made me look up Lawrence Ferlinghetti!

Today also brought some interesting news.  As my honors class worked quietly on their poetry books, I read my Feedly feeds.  One article caught my attention (leave it to Florida).  I even read the headline aloud to the class, "Florida Elementary School Stops Serving Mountain Dew to Students Before Standardized Test."  The article makes it seem more reasonable, but it is entertaining.  Honestly, it's not different than the insanity of our school giving students a breakfast of sugared cereal.  Although the intent is good, the implementation is flawed.

Then I saw a brief news story about Michelle Obama and a girl that gave her an interesting item.  It was heartwarming for two reasons.  First, the girl obviously loves her dad and is trying to help.  Next, Michelle Obama actually took it with her instead of merely leaving it.  Plus, she a gave the girl a sincere hug.  I ♥ Michelle Obama.

Also, I heard from my orthopedic surgeon today.  He was calling about my MRI results which I appreciated.  It also gave me the opportunity to ask questions that I had after thinking about his explanation of the surgery (pretty dang major).  Each of my questions was answered and explained.  In addition, he has called other orthopedic doctors since my type of separation is a bit unusual.  The news was a bit overwhelming, but I appreciated his answering my questions and talking to others.  I'm sure everyone has heard enough about my shoulder, but it has somewhat overtaken my life (possible major surgery, PT, pain...).  I'll try to hold back on future posts.

Finally, I completed the 40 Book Challenge.  All the books I read now for the remainder of the year can be the genre of my choosing.  In other words, I will not be reading mystery, fantasy, or science fiction.