Working in Schools with Author Ann E. Burg! Pure Joy. So Thankful for a Beautiful Writer and the Incredible Young People of Southern Connecticut.

As part of Ann E. Burg's visit, we visited a few of the schools who are using her books in their curriculum. Although we were unable to stay long, it was enough time to get kids talking and responding to her presentation, where I could capture words and write a poem with them. We are thankful to Chelsea Leonard, Richard Novack, and Stacey Landowne for opening their classrooms. At Fairfield Warde, a girl entered all flustered about a tik-toc video she was watching, which was about a flat pan and making ramen on it. She kept saying, "But you can't make ramen with it," as she entertained her friends. I stole that as a title and refrain, also pointing out to students that poetry is in everything, if we find a poetic way to capture it. The students in these classes were remarkable, engaged, curious, and happy to have an author presenting to them. I was just the guy taking down words so we could play.

Framing the World (Flavors of History)

~Written with 8^th Grade Students from Classical Academy

Bridgeport, Connecticut

 

Today is historical

& I asked them to dog-sneeze hysterical

about the lyrical ways we taste our lives…

We are wet cardboard

With a mouthful of pennies

& stale chocolate..

8^th graders classically magnetized with

the work of water, chalk, & old books

flooded in the fruity privilege, lies, and stories

(oh the glories of being in school). 

This is 8^th grade. Here I’m a fool

Watching the clock that never moves

hoping this class finds its flow & grooves

as we make sense of this house of tears…

All these fears at 9:30 in the morning. 

Yes, life, our words capture the warning

That each of us are history, too.

 

We Can Make Ramen with It

Co-written with Fairfield Warde High School Students

 

He wanted to give them a voice,

a choice to find a way from 

benevolent nightmares, Mephistophelian

bubbles stapled in antidisestablishmentarianism

while we asked, “What are we willing to give up?”

 

We can always make ramen with it

 

Act as gossamers of uxorious lullabies, 

While our heart tries to find applicable timelines

to push through a hatred of history

and the blistery, stuck-in-my-mind self-doubt

contaminated with a legacy of hatred,

real people – we are just broken pieces

who won’t be happy in high school,

when so many take our happiness away.

Tomorrow, today,

We’re just trying to make Ramen with it.

 

We are seeds planting ourselves as trees,

But what are we willing to give up?

Some of us want to be teachers,

others just swim like fish through

math, numbers, tomatoes, roses, and luck.

 

We’re making ramen, aren’t we?

Purple sunrises, pink-mauve moonlit skies,

finding our voices as we fight their lies, 

stuck in our minds, hearts & soul.

 

We’re making ramen.

This is how we grow.