Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
August 18, 2010
August light turns in by eightand night comes early in the forestlullabiedby crickets’ chorus,shrilly sung crescendosby a choir that no one sees.
A piece of poem.Don’t know when I wrote it, but when ripened tomatoes start to sag on drying vines and shadows begin to lengthen in late afternoon, it floats through my mind, looking
August 12, 2010
First impressions are important. As an author, the good thing about making a trailer for your new book is that you get the opportunity to introduce the book to friends in your own words, your own vision. Like introducing one friend to another, the introducer gets to help with the first impression. You can say
August 5, 2010
Singing “kookaburra sits in the old gum tree-ee” makes a whole lot more sense if you have heard the mouthy bird and understand that a gum tree is a sweet smelling eucalyptus. The “baaa necessities” become more clearly defined when you learn that Aussies drop most r’s, don’t run the heat when no one
July 15, 2010
New Zealand, where the air is clear and the pies are steamy, the people are friendly and the internet is expensive, sparse and achingly slow. Michael and I came downunder for the IRA World Congress, a multi-national literacy conference that convenes every other year. We had a few days to take in some
June 4, 2010
So my question to the wise women writers I have dinner with now and then was: Do you think that every generation, when people get to a certain age, they just think the world is going to hell, or do you think the world really is going south this time?
And alternately, we each added
May 29, 2010
When life becomes a blur, about the only thing to do is buckle your seatbelt and wait for the ride to stop. That’s when you stagger away, slightly dizzy, searching for a focus point.
Since my last post I visited Shanghai, North Dakota, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, Connecticut and various points in
March 14, 2010
First the hand off. We are passed from one librarian to the next — from SIS to KIS — from Chris to Kris Feller — at Sunday brunch. Right after that we drive to the Korean Folk Village to be entertained by daredevils on horseback, a tightrope walker (no net for this guy)
March 14, 2010
Gyenongbok Palace: Pictures don’t do justice to this massive building. The changing of the guard is a serious procession complete with whipping flag routine, air slicing curved knives on sticks and whopping drums.
As I stand watching this ancient, powerful routine I feel cheated that my education was so Euro-centric.
March 14, 2010
Banners in the hall, coffee and brownies in the library, and attentive students — what more could any poet ask? The grounds of the school are dotted with sculptures and the athletic field glows green on the damp, grey day we arrive. It’s cold in Korea and workers have fires burning at
March 14, 2010
When burdened with too much baggage, dehydrated for fresh air and fluids, invariably sweating because it seemed easier to wear that coat than pack it, hazy-headed, you push through the milky one way doors out of the uniformed forest of customs officials and get shunted between metal railings for inspection by a waiting crowd of
