Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
April 16, 2011
If the above photo doesn’t look like an attendee at a teacher’s conference, prepare to expand your vision. EARCOS= East Asian Regional Council of Overseas Schools, and every spring they put on a teacher conference like no other. From snorkeling to blow darts to technological looks into the classrooms of today and the
March 14, 2011
All the commotion, (laundry, packing, emails, phone calls, house sitters, doggie day care and a last minute trip to buy travel sized toothpaste that won’t pose a threat to national security) settles into a darkened drone for 15 hours over the Pacific and opens into the brilliant sun of Sydney, Australia. Landing at
January 29, 2011
How many ways can you conjugate green? This is a view from our porch at Alam Sari Keliki. What I can’t show is the soft sounds of wooden cow bells, the bird songs and the rooster who thinks that it is dawn at least once on the hour. Of course there is
January 29, 2011
The thing about us Americans is that we just plain need to get out more. Seriously.
While we are in Hong Kong riding spotless subways, double-decker buses, viewing the latest in technological gadgetry and neon, some bonehead in congress is introducing legislation to force teachers into teaching creationism. Where did
January 23, 2011
To paraphrase that NPR philosopher Garrison Keillor: The Canadian International School of Hong Kong is a place where the faculty is bright, the facilities are ultra-modern, and all the poets are above average.
Every new school is an unknown destination – whether it is across town or on the other side
January 14, 2011
It wasn’t on the calendar in advance. No prior knowledge on my part. But as the weather cooled and the travel escalated, I kind of withdrew from my blog and facebook. Virtual silence. I’ve been lurking around, reading, an occasional comment, but I was putting my creative energy into other buckets. And then came the
November 11, 2010
Is it true that the wisemen brought pumpkins to honor the infant? Is that the Holy Ghost dressed up as a scarecrow for Halloween? ORDoes this image beg the question: How was it that the parable of the scarecrow-as-cheerleader was somehow omitted from my Sunday School lessons? ANDWhy do most passion plays eschew the
November 9, 2010
To the Young Poet Standing
“Failure drives a Nissan Cube.”Your opening line is succinct. Neither made up in a slather of cosmetic adjectivesor itching to shake off an entanglement of adverbs. Personification plain and simple.You have written to your audience.Read the lines with clarity and intonation.Everything that was asked of you.
Since Failure has
November 7, 2010
While reading the news online this morning, I found a cache of poems allegedly about the end of daylight savings time. (click here) I’m not sure these poems were all written for this purpose, or indeed if any poem has a purpose. Most honored poets seem to be all mournful about the death of
October 22, 2010
Once upon a time in the long long ago, parents were the gatekeepers of knowledge for kids. Sharp knives and matches were dispensed to kids on a need to know basis by grown-ups.
Over many generations, that dribble of knowledge begot kids doing their own thinking and writing books which begot libraries. Libraries begot