Friday, March 3, 2017

SOL 3/31: Friday Ramblings

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 
to the Slice of Life (SOL) community.
Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny
for hosting this meeting place each day in March
and for nurturing our writing lives.

I had forgotten it was Poetry Friday until I saw Tara's post last night. Our host for this week, Jama, asked that we share a favorite Billy Collins' poem in honor of his birthday.  The poem that Tara shared, "How to Read a Poem," is one that I frequently shared in my classroom. Not wanting to be redundant, I headed to the Poetry Foundation site to peruse other poems by Billy Collins.  I didn't find any that were favorites, but I did find a new-to-me short one that I liked.   But I failed to write down the title and it's taken me about a half hour of reading more Billy Collins' poems this morning to find it again.  I'll share the link now before I lose it again - "Poem" by Billy Collins.  I love the first two lines:  
"It's like writing a short letter
to everyone in the world at once,"

And here's the link to many more poems by Billy Collins on the Poetry Foundation's site.  And while I was checking out other resources about Billy Collins, I found this delightful Poetry Off the Shelf audio, The Poetry Garage about a parking garage where the floors are named after poets (instead of cities or sports teams).  You can listen to a poem and read about the poet featured on your floor while you wait for the elevator.  Billy Collins is on floor two and his poem is "Forgetfulness."  Fast forward to 7:47 in the Poetry Garage audio and you can hear Billy Collins read part of the poem.   Or just click on the poem title to hear him read all of the poem.  

And I'll close this rambling poetic post about Billy Collins with his words from his biography on the Poetry Foundation site:  “I think my work has to do with a sense that we are attempting, all the time, to create a logical, rational path through the day. To the left and right there are an amazing set of distractions that we usually can’t afford to follow. But the poet is willing to stop anywhere.”  As you can see, I'm easily distracted and willing to join the poet in stopping by those amazing distractions along the rational path through the day.  Happy Poetry Friday!
Head over to Heidi Mordhurst's blog, 
for this week's round-up of poetic goodness.  
Thanks, Heidi, for hosting this week!

12 comments:

  1. "The poet is willing to stop anywhere" - so true. And few stop and make us think better than Billy Collins. Thanks for the resources, Ramona!

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  2. From your post I wandered off to read some of the poems from the link you provided. For me this poet is a new discovery.

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  3. Someone else has also shared "Forgetfulness" which I love, but I didn't know about Poet's Garage except for the group. I'm glad you did your own 'forgetting' because then you share even more from Billy Collins! Wonderful to have more of him today!

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  4. Oh my goodness, that Poetry Garage sounds amazing! I love the idea of sprinkling poetry around, and making it a part of our every day experiences, rather than locking it away in textbooks and bookshelves!

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  5. I, too, love the quote Tara highlighted. Thanks for your post!

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  6. I am sharing "How to Read a Poem" with my students next week in a unit about mood and tone. "The poet is willing to stop anywhere" is a line I think we could substitute slicer too! I know I sure look at things a lot closer the month of March!

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  7. A short letter to the world. No pressure! :) I am actually not a huge fan of Billy Collins but do love how accessible his work is. He has done a lot to bring poetry to everyday folks, and for that I am so grateful! xo

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  8. Love your post AND all the comments. I learn so much from everything. Thank you. Have a great week.

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  9. Thanks for sharing those first two lines from "Poem" ... sometimes that's the way I feel about blogging slices.

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  10. I, too, love those first two lines from "Poem."

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  11. Another new-to-me BC poem--again about writing? How does he pull it off time after time? The quote you found is also intriguing. Perhaps I should work less hard on self-discipline...

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  12. That is a new-to-me short BC poem. I like it. I remember those thin blue envelopes. I still have a letter my mother sent in one.

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