Author Archives: sara holbrook

This is a question that has been haunting me. The attitude seems to start around middle school but it projects itself into the political arena all the time. Maybe doubting the intelligence of the world is simply a rite of passage, like the rite of passage where adults upon reaching a certain age (much older than I, of course) question why the world doesn’t value the wisdom of its elders more.

I asked a group of students this question last week and one girl replied that Jessica Simpson started it. I dare say it started long before her chicken of the sea embarrassments, but it was good to know the student knew what I was talking about.

Have been working hard on two new books, many hours at the computer. Not enough time for reflection.

A week at Westerly — this is the elementary school both my daughters attended. I was lucky enough to spend the week there doing writing workshops with the third and fourth grades culminating in a grand poetry jam on Friday afternoon. The auditorium was darkened, the stage set, names drawn and many poems performed to enthusiastic applause. Many thanks to Martha Fisher for her extra efforts in making the week a success.

Many many students have heard me tell the story of how I came to write “The Dog Ate My Homework.” How our dog ate my daughter’s report card and then the spelling book, how I had to make apologies to her teachers. What many students may not know is that that teacher is a real person and that she is still teaching after (rough estimate) 600 students have passed through her lively classroom. Her name is Mrs. Woodburn (see picture). In her cupboard she now keeps a three ring binder of homework excuses. She is a star in her students’ eyes and in her profession.

Driving through Pennsylvania in the twilight of October is nothing if not a colorful experience! That drive was only surpassed by the fun I had visiting Mt. Nittany and Park Forest Middle School and schools in State College and meeting with all the students and teachers. Four days in the district, it’s hard to pinpoint the highest point, but it might have been the visit to the class pictured below.

The teachers and libraians Kathy Billet and Dotty Delafield had the students so pumped up about poetry, their enthusiasm was in the air and on their papers as we shared our poems and even composed some new ones. Lots of poems on the walls and lining the halls. After meeting with the students, I spent a half day in-service with the teachers in grades 6-12. I wonder if the kids know what great poets their teachers are.

Many thanks to the staff, administration and especially the kids in State College. And a little thank you also to Mother Nature for sharing her pallet enroute.

Once in a while a student question just sticks with me — usually the ones I don’t have answers for. Last Friday (now Sunday) following the final assembly (eighth grade, last period, we all survived) after I had reminded the kids of the rights and responsibilities of free speech, revealed personal facts about my life, joked and urged them to put their own thoughts and feelings down on paper and share them with others, I asked for questions.

“Who are you wearing?”

I had to ask for a restatement — not what was I wearing, but who?
Is this a sign of too much time spent aside the red carpet with Joan Rivers? Over exposure to People Magazine? The world has an elevated temperature, the country has been visited by plagues of winds and floods and fire, the heads of the senate and the congress are being investigated for illegal activities, the country is a war. . . and there was no discussion about the world, the content of my poems, the content of my soul or the student’s, all he wanted to know was what corporate entity was on the label of my wrapper.

At first I thought it was such an insignificant question, I didn’t even pause for a response, so many hands in the air. But the more I think about it, the more important the question becomes. Had I answered the question, would that have changed the boy’s view of me? Colored it? I never intended my wardrobe to provide that ah-ha moment poets search for.

I didn’t have a good answer.
I still don’t.
But I can’t erase the question or the young man’s face from my vision of myself or the world. I guess today, that student is who I am wearing and to tell you the truth, the ensemble kind of itches.

And even though today started before 6AM and the game is in extra innings after 11PM, even though the school day ended with a last period assembly of eight graders on a Friday afternoon and the school was an hour’s drive from home and even though I’m a month behind in my blog and they are in the attic in a plastic tub marked Christmas ornaments, tonight is the night to pull out the flannel sheets.

There just comes a time.
And this is it.
Tomorrow will be the day for updating the blog with scattered journal scratchings.
Lots of writing this past month — just not here.

Today was a great day with friends at Olmsted Falls Middle School where the kids were well prepared and the teachers were enthused and involved. The sun was out and the air and the falling leaves were crisp. It was a day to be grateful for.

And just made for flannel sheets.

I’ve seen the Discovery specials on salmon, how they leap dramatically up waterfalls to get upstream. What they don’t show you on TV is the bonepiles of salmon that don’t make it. How they fall into piles of decay and become sushi for their canabalistic fellow travelers.

Catching salmon is about timing the tides and the runs against the fisherman’s patience and vacation time. For the salmon, timing their run into the spawning stream at high tide seems to be key in Whittier, Alaska. Time it wrong and the big ones die in shallow tide pools.

Timing, as it has always been, is life or death.

Whittier is a place out of time. The only route into town is a still functioning railroad tunnel that also functions as the longest tunnel for cars in the U.S., 2.5 miles. You might think that means the train runs beside the cars, but no. The trains and the cars take turns in a single lane tunnel, the cars rolling straight down the train tracks. The tunnel itself is more like a cave with gray, seeping bolder walls. A tall, thin tunnel, it leads to a little outpost on Prince Edward Sound. Michael fished most of today and I went back to Tucson with Hannah, thanks to a laptop and an electrical outlet in the rental car.

It was a brilliant day.