Friday, June 19, 2015

Poetry Friday: Poetic Reflections on a Thursday at All Write

Thursday at the All Write conference in Warsaw, Indiana was filled with these wonderful celebrations of poets and poetry:

Poetic Moment #1:  In Christy Rush Levine's session, Structuring Reading Workshop for the Magic that Might Go Down, we were treated to Ted Kooser's poem "Selecting a Reader."  This poem is her choice for the first shared text of the school year, scheduled for day two of a new school year.


Writers are my rock stars!





Poetic Moment #2:  Georgia Heard joined our table tonight at the All Write dinner.  She quickly discovered that we are a group of friends united through our shared writing on our blogs.  Our table included writers from Washington, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Tennessee.  And more bloggers were scattered throughout the crowd at dinner. Georgia graciously indulged my request for a photo with her and Ruth Ayres.








Poetic Moment #3:  Our guest speaker at the evening banquet, Seymour Simon, shared Walt Whitman's poem, "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer."  As we listened to the final words of the poem, "...from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars," the room was filled with the kind of "deep sigh elation" that can only come when a roomful of teachers recognize they are in the hands of a masterful storyteller.  We loved the stories he shared of the writing life he began as a second grader with a story about space monsters.  His stories were woven with threads of poetry.  We were treated to two more recitations:  Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice," and May Swenson's poem, "The Universe."  He reminded us that poetry and nonfiction are closely related.  Both narrative forms are mysterious and poetic.  It was gratifying to see how Simon used poetry to share stories about his writing life and this mysterious, magnificent universe in which we live.

                                                                    Head over to A Year of Reading
for this week's roundup of poetry love. 
Thanks for hosting, MaryLee!

8 comments:

  1. What a wonderful taste of your time at All Write. Thank you for letting us be there with you for these moments. How I would love to hear Semour Simon read these poems aloud. xo

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  2. Wonderful capture of the day, Ramona. So glad I got to be at All-Write with you!

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  3. Envy, jealousy be gone! I am truly happy that you all got to sit and chat together! Someday, I hope to join in that fun and meet everyone I have read.

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  4. What an experience! Thanks for this write up so we can live vicariously through you. =)

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  5. What awesome company to be amongst--both in your blog post and in person! It has been wonderful to see you again, to learn together, and to sit and talk. Thank you for your kind words of support, the moments you captured in photos, and your friendship!

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  6. Thank you for capturing all of the poetry at All Write! It was great to see you!

    We felt bad about turning Georgia away from our full table at the dinner (how COULD we have turned away GEORGIA HEARD?!?!), so I'm glad to hear she wound up in the perfect spot. Wasn't it amazing that Seymour Simon read us THREE poems?!?!

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  7. Fan girl moments for sure. Thanks for sharing this with us at today's PF post. It makes me smile seeing the people I admire.

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  8. Looking back at this slice I still wish that could have been the year I got to go to AllWrite. I didn’t make it til later. I was so happy to meet Ruth ... also “Elsie” and “Kim.” Missed Meeting you!

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