Sara Holbrook
Sara Holbrook is a full time educator, author/poet and consultant who brings practical knowledge to the classroom helping students to develop the complex thinking and literacy skills they will need to succeed in the 21st century workplace. With over 30 years’ experience as a writer in the fields of education, law, public housing, and drug prevention, she has been teaching in classrooms around the US and abroad for over 20 years. She is also the author of more than a dozen books for children, adults and teachers as well as an award-winning performance poet. A frequent keynote speaker, she shows teachers how to use writing and oral presentation exercises in order to help raise vocabulary and other literacy skills along with comprehension through collaboration, writing and classroom performance across all grade levels and content areas.
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I didn’t dream of being a poet when I was young. All the poets in the library at my sechool were dead. Who wants to grow up to be a dead guy? I grew up before youtube, before the time when kids poetry books were shelved with the joke books in the library, and before schools started having author visits. There were no poets in my neighborhood or my family. I knew a kid could grow up to be a doctor, a teacher, or a grocery store clerk, but a poet?
Still, I started writing poetry. Periodically at first. And then I got more serious about it when my two daughters were young, continuing through their middle and teen years. The first audience for one of my poetry readings was a slumber party.
Since that time, the poems and my audiences have increased. I am now the author of a dozen poetry books for kids and two for adults, plus four professional books for teachers (see tabs above for more info). I have performed in poetry slams, on school stages in almost every state in the USA and over 30 different countries, in a coffee shop in Nigeria and a boxing ring in Stockholm. I am a performance poet, I don’t think a poem really comes to life until it is read aloud.
I write about two things, mostly — what I know and what I wonder about. Reading and writing poetry helps me understand my life, the world, and the people I care about. Whether I am writing funny or serious poems, writing poetry helps me see what’s true.
I have had many jobs in my life. I am a graduate of Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio where I received a degree in English. I have done some part-time teaching, but mostly I have made my living writing. Before I became a full time poet, I worked in the area of public relations in the fields of law, drug prevention and public housing.
As many poets before me, I began by self-publishing. I named my little publishing company Kid Poems for the not-so-bad because I write for kids who are like I am — maybe a little ornery, but really not-so-bad.
Sharing my passion for poetry with audiences and student writers is the best job I’ve ever had.
If you want to write to me, use my contact page. Be sure to put your email address in so I can write you back!
